The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Joplin Metro

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September 20, 2008

Joplin building at 58 percent of last year’s pace

By Andy Ostmeyer

aostmeyer@joplinglobe.com

A $700,000 building permit filed for the new Macadoodle’s going in at the 1717 Marketplace shopping center along Range Line Road led construction in Joplin for August. It was the largest permit filed in the city last month.

Macadoodle’s, which owns a store selling spirits and wines on the Missouri side of the state line near Bella Vista, Ark., is planning a similar store for Joplin.

All Joplin construction in August came to $3.7 million, which is comparable to the nearly $3.5 million in permits filed for the same month one year earlier.

However, construction has fallen sharply behind the pace set in fiscal year 2007 for the city. Last year, through the end of August, construction was at $107.1 million, compared to $62.4 million through August of this year.

That is 58 percent of the pace set for last year, which turned out to be a record for the city of Joplin, when $128.1 million in building permits were filed.

The city’s fiscal year runs from Nov. 1 to Oct. 31. The permits reflect only that work taking place inside the city limits, but none of the work going on outside Joplin, such as the construction of two new middle schools or work on the casino and hotel complex owned by the Quapaw tribe near the Missouri line in Oklahoma.

This year has seen a slow down in both new home and new business building.

Through August, 73 permits valued at $11.8 million were filed to build new single-family homes, compared to 125 permits valued at $16.7 million for the same period one year earlier.

Only 16 new business permits were filed in the past 10 months, valued at $29.4 million in August, less than half the 37 new business permits valued at $62.5 million filed for the same period one year earlier.







Three projects

No seven-figure building permits were filed in August in Joplin, and only three million-dollar-plus projects have been filed in the city limits so far this fiscal year. Those were to finish out Freeman Health System’s new Women’s Health Center, and two permits — each around $12 million — to build a recreation center and a health sciences building on the campus of Missouri Southern State University.

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