The Construction Industry Research Board report found that permits for 240 multifamily units were issued in May, less than half the 581 permits issued during the same period a year ago. The dollar volume for the permits totaled $27.4 million, down sharply from the $98.2 million a year ago.
So far this year the county has issued permits for $279 million in multifamily constructioin, down 12.7% from the same time a year ago.
Office and retail permit activity was down in May as well, according to the report. Developers haven't been in a rush to pull permits for new product, with hundreds of thousands of square feet of sublease space on the market and hundreds of thousands more already in the construction pipeline.
Builders pulled permits for $28.8 million in office and retail construction in May, down 17.3% from a year ago. However, new commercial permits year-to-date are still running ahead of last year's levels, totaling$204 million worth of permits through May--up 8.82% from the first five months of 2001.
Industrial construction is nearly flat: new industrial construction permit volume totaled just $3.1 million in May, less than one-third the $9.51 million reported a year ago, according to the CIRB.
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