From developers to hospitals to homeowners, more than $1.5 billion worth of construction was set in motion in Minneapolis in 2023, city officials said Monday.
It's the 13th straight year that figure —the total dollar value of building permits issued by the city in a calendar year — has surpassed $1 billion, a trend "indicative of a city that continues to grow," Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference touting the numbers.
Frey and Director of Planning and Economic Development Erik Hansen acknowledged that the pipeline for 2024 is slim at the moment, making the prospects for 2024 less clear. The potential slowdown is likely the result of multiple factors, including high interest rates for financing such projects, as well as uncertainty in Minneapolis over the future of the city's 2040 plan, which affects what can and can't be built there and is mired in legal wrangling.
Projects range from homeowners remodeling theirs kitchens to Abbott Northwestern's $23 million hospital expansion.
The bulk of those investments — nearly $1.2 billion —came from about 1,700 commercial building permits. Nearly 16,000 residential building permits were granted for smaller projects that added up to about $340 million in construction.
Here are the top 10 projected permitted in 2023, based on their dollar value. All have broken ground.