Twin Cities residential permits jump in December.

Byline: Matt M. Johnson

Twin Cities residential permit applications saw a double-digit jump in December coming off an unusually cold November in which builders backed off on permit activity.

December saw a 33.4 percent increase in the total number of single-family and multifamily units permitted in the 13-county metro compared with the previous December, according to the Keystone Report released Wednesday.

Cities included in the report issued 523 permits for 1,363 new housing units during in December. That includes 866 multifamily units, up from 650 units permitted in December 2017. Permits for new single-family homes totaled 497, up 36 percent from the same time last year.

Those gains boost residential permit numbers for all of 2018. For the year through December, single-family permits (5,880) are running just 0.6 percent ahead of last year. Planned multifamily units (6,869) are down about 9 percent from 7,590 in 2017, and the total value of all permits ($2.55 billion) is up 3.19 percent, the report shows.

Although the yearlong multifamily permit total is down from 2017, this year will still see more apartment units completed, said Herb Tousley, director of real estate programs at the University of St. Thomas. Market experts have been predicting that about 6,500 apartments would be delivered in the Twin Cities this year.

"There are going to be more deliveries 2018 than in 2017," Tousley said in a Thursday interview. "I think this will be a record year."

The largest multifamily project reflected in the December Keystone report is the 370-unit Expo luxury apartment tower and complex that Bloomington-based Doran Cos. and Minneapolis-based CSM Corp. are building at 215 Second St. SE in Minneapolis. Work started on the $100 million project is moving quickly, said Doran principal and founder Kelly Doran.

"We're under construction," he said in a recent interview. "We're coming out of the hole."

The 25-story Expo is expected to open in 2020. Doran and CSM plan to build another 800 apartments next door to Expo on a two-block site in the St. Anthony Main neighborhood. Those apartments have yet to receive final approvals from the city.

On the single-family front, December permits put 2018 just barely ahead of 2017, even as demand for homes in the Twin Cities remains high. Sales of new-construction homes grew by 28.7 percent year-over-year in November, according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. However, the supply of homes was 2.1...