2025 is proving to be another strong year of investment in our community. We were able to push over $1 billion worth of building permits in the month of September, which is earlier than we have the past couple of years. Mid-October we pushed over $1.2 billion making 2025 now our second-best year on record. It doesn’t appear building activity is slowing down in our community in the fourth quarter either as there are some large projects we are still reviewing. This includes further addition to the new LifeScape building at 34th Street N and Career Avenue and the Rhys Apartments that are expected to be built at the previous Gage Brothers site, which is along West 12th Street near I-29. Downtown is also expected to see a sizable addition to the Levitt at the Falls. Once again, we are seeing a variety of building permits being issued throughout our community with projects over $10 million in residential, manufacturing, and healthcare.
Although we are seeing a large value of building permits issued so far in 2025, the total number of building permits is down slightly from 2024 at 5,114 through October and quite significantly from 2023 in which 6,450 were issued through October. Much of what drives the total number of building permits issued are residential roofing and repair permits. With no significant storms causing hail or wind damage in Sioux Falls, the past two years have seen a reduction in the number of roofing and repair permits being issued per year.
Commercial development is strong in 2025, which is great to see given that we started the year with zero plans in the queue for our commercial plan’s examiners. This was the first time since I’ve been working at the city since 2015, we were fully caught up on our reviews at the beginning of the year. It was only a few short hours later that this changed though as January became one of our strongest months of the year, with just over $102 million in valuations. This set the stage for what was a very busy first half of the year.
Multi-family housing projects slowed in 2025, which isn’t surprising after three to four years of outstanding growth in this sector. Through October, 930 units have been issued, which is on pace with the years leading up to 2020. Following 2020, we experienced what we would consider a boom in apartment construction over the past several years, which we expected would not be sustainable. Along with total units issued, apartment construction has seen a decline in the size of buildings being permitted. The trend we are seeing in 2025 is companies choosing to build a complex with several smaller buildings that contain 15-30 units each, rather than one large building with 200-300 units.
The investments many of you are choosing to make in our community are the reason we are still seeing significant amount of new residential development. Compared to previous years, we are seeing a slight decrease in single-family home construction, but June was the best month for single-family homes with 50 permits being issued. Twin home permits have been trending up from recent years. September alone saw 144 twin home permits issued. Most of these are in connection with Founders Crossing, which is Good Samaritan Society’s new project near the junction of 57th Street and Highway 11.
Given some of the uncertainty in the economy, we recognize how special it is that Sioux Falls is still seeing this type of investment in commercial and residential developments. A strong building community signifies a strong and vibrant city, and that’s what makes Sioux Falls special. Thank you for your continued partnership as we all do our part to maintain Sioux Falls as one of the best places to live in the country.
