RAPID CITY, S.D. (KELO) — Lately, we’ve been reporting on Sioux Falls’ housing boom. On the other side of the state, Rapid City just saw a record number of permits for single family homes in February.
Mike Nesland owns a Rapid City construction company and says lots in town are filling up fast.
“We’re working on trying to keep up with the demand, of course our labor field is very limited. Right now, if I had enough lots at the moment, I could pre-sell 50 lots in the next two weeks,” Nesland said.
Nesland says with so many building permits, it’s looking to be a busy spring and summer.
“It’s a good time but it’s also a challenging time with the pandemic and trying to get materials, supplies, they’re going up in cost as fast as we can build houses they just keep rising. So we have some challenges with this growth which will stymie somewhat but not too bad,” Nesland said.
During the month of February this year, Rapid City saw 34 single-family-home permits, which is a record-breaking number. The last record breaking number was back in 2015, which was 30 permits.
“We’re continuing to see steady growth in the city. Our population growth has been going up about 1 to 1.5 percent in recent years and we’ve seen that steady increase with building that’s followed with that,” Shoemaker said.
The Communications Manager for Rapid City, Darrell Shoemaker, says this is exciting news.
“We just think that there’s more and more focus on moving to the Black Hills, building here, expanding or renovating their business or their homes here. So we are pleased at those numbers,” Shoemaker said.
Altogether, Rapid City has issued 495 building permits for the first two months of the year, which is a total of more than 53 million dollars.
