General contractors on Hawaii Island are staying busy even as the construction sector is easing down from last year’s peak.
General contractors on Hawaii Island are staying busy even as the construction sector is easing down from last year’s peak.
Numbers published recently by the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism indicate a decline in the value of building permits statewide and within individual counties.
“We’re generally seeing a slowdown,” said county Planning Department Deputy Director Joaquin Gamiao-Kunkel. “Even from two months ago, it’s down.”
April saw a drop of nearly 50 percent in the value of residential building permits, as compared to last year’s numbers for Hawaii County.
At the same time, the value of county permit applications for additions and alterations jumped 127.8 percent over last year’s April numbers. There has been a 15 percent year-to-date increase in permits for this category.
Contractors on both sides of the Big Island report that demand remains high for home projects of all types, despite the decrease in permit applications.
“It’s busy both with new construction and remodeling,” said Jim Reynolds, president of Sunset Builders Inc. in Kailua-Kona. “The economy seems to be doing better and picking up steam.”
Reynolds said new jobs were so frequent that it was hard to find enough construction workers for projects.
In Kona, the remodeling business is driven by work on vacation homes and condominiums.
“A lot of people like to do (the work) in what we call the offseason, in the winter,” Reynolds said. “They typically like to start around April or May and finish by the end of October.” That way, he said, owners are ready for the “premium months” in the winter.
Diane Tarring, administrator of JET Builders Inc. in Hilo, said the past year had been one of the busiest seasons in the company’s past 26 years of business.
“It does typically come in cycles,” she said.
“I would say kitchen and bathroom (remodeling) are the most common, and additions would be third,” Reynolds said. “We have a lot of properties on Alii Drive, and most are about 40 years old so the kitchen and the bathrooms, if they’ve never been addressed … are in pretty poor shape by now.”
Tarring said kitchen remodels were a good way to increase a home’s value, as were expansions such as building master suites.
Construction statewide peaked in early 2015, with permit values reaching a level not seen since 2005, according to the DBEDT numbers.
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.