Arras Hotel and Residences,
currently under construction in downtown Asheville.
The fall edition of the Asheville City Manager’s Development Forum will not happen this go-round, due to several scheduling conflicts.
Staff expects to resume the popular community update on economic and development activity in the spring with our new City Manager Debra Campbell at the helm. Appointed by City Council, Campbell will begin her work in Asheville Dec. 3.
In the meantime, we do have some information from the City’s Development Services Department to share with the community. The graphics below represent recent trends in Asheville commercial and residential construction as well as the number of permits and inspections DSD has done per month as compared with recent years.
After historic highs, the number of permits issued and total value of construction has decreased in Fiscal Year 2018. The decrease in construction value is significant and is associated with a decline in large commercial projects and unique projects such as the Mission Hospital Tower or Arras building renovation. While this trend seems counterintuitive when viewing all the construction activity occurring in Asheville, permits are issued and fees collected prior to the start of construction. Oftentimes the provision of services and visible impact of construction occurs for several years after the issuance of a permit. A strong indication of this is the continued increase in the number of inspections performed, despite the decline of new permits issued.
There are, however, several large projects that are currently in the development review process that may affect future permit volume and construction value.
The Development Services Department continues to move forward with an electronic permit submittal and review process, as indicated by the steady increase in the number of permits opened online.
For more information, contact Development Services Director Ben Woody at BWoody@ashevillenc.gov or 828-259-5679.
Statistics compiled by the Asheville Development Services Department
