Building reports are an eye-opener

Day by day, it may not seem like much is happening, construction wise, in and around McCook. But when you go back 42 years -- and add it all together -- the numbers reach impressive levels.

"We wanted to see what the trends were," said Doyle Wineland, the city's building official and compliance officer. "We went back to 1960 to compile a year-by-year report. It's been an eye-opener."

Among the facts the building officer uncovered were the following:

* Between Jan. 1, 1960, and Sept. 30, 2003, the city issued a total of 5,957 building permits for projects costing a grand total of $153,713,986.

* During that same period, 952 one- and two-family houses were built in and around McCook at a combined cost of $50,386,903.

* The busiest year, number-wise, for residential construction was 1961, during the heart of the oil boom, when 100 houses were built.

* Dollar-wise, the peak year for home building was 2002. Although only 17 houses were built last year, compared to the 100 constructed in 1961, the combined value of the new houses in 2002 was $2,572,000, more than double the $1,173,680 cost of home building in 1961.

* From a commercial standpoint, the record year -- dollar-wise -- was also 2002, with four projects at a total combined value of $5,882,784.

* The year 2002 also set a record for construction cost, with the year's total project value of $11.4 million surpassing the entire amount spent in the decade of the 1960s, when construction was valued at $5.2 million, and the decade of the 1970s, when building projects totaled $9.5 million in value.

What's obvious from the building permit analysis is the tremendous increase in inflation in the past 43 years. Showing this graphically is the average value of houses built down through the decades. In the 1960s, 388 houses were built in McCook at an average cost of $13,422. The average cost tripled in the 1970s, when 214 houses were constructed at an average cost of $44,818. In the 1980s, 184 houses went up at an average cost of $67,223 each. Then, prices more than doubled in the 1990s, when 125 homes were built in McCook at an average cost of $140,865.

That brings us to the 2000s, with 41 houses built to date in McCook at an average cost of $136,841 -- the first dip in average cost in four decades.

Looked at over an extended period of time, the construction activity in McCook has been impressive. More than 950 houses have been built in the past 43 years, along with a number of significant commercial projects, such as the Valmont and Parker Hannefin plants to the southeast, the Community Hospital to the northeast, the Work Ethic Camp to the northwest and the Wal-Mart Supercenter to the southwest.

All together, remember, there have been $153 million in building projects in McCook since the 1960s, a total which shows steady growth despite the the rapid increase in building prices.