While construction activity may just be waking up in much of Flathead County, building is in full swing in Whitefish.

“We’re going full tilt on single-family construction,” Whitefish Planning Director David Taylor said. “We have 12 single-family applications [on the building inspector’s] desk that haven’t been reviewed yet.”

Some of the high-end residential construction in places such as Iron Horse on Big Mountain has resumed, largely because lot prices dropped during the recession and haven’t rebounded. 

Taylor said lots that would have sold for around $300,000 a few years ago now are being plucked up for $80,000.

There are a couple of major multifamily projects in the works, too.

The proposed 173-unit 2nd Street Apartments is being fine-tuned by developers William MacDonald and Sean Averill to address neighborhood impacts and is expected to come back to the Whitefish Planning Board in May.

An apartment complex with up to 30 units is “coming down the pike” in the Railway District near the railroad tracks.

And it’s not just residential construction that has the Whitefish Planning Office hopping.

Block 46, a prime piece of commercial property along Spokane Avenue and between Second and Third streets, has been sold and a boutique hotel complex is proposed. 

Seven years ago when the last boom was still going strong, developers had planned high-density residential housing and retail space for Block 46, but the site has been empty since the bottom fell out of the local construction industry.

Another boutique hotel has been proposed at the corner of Third Street and Central Avenue in downtown Whitefish by the owners of The Lodge at Whitefish Lake. 

Brian Averill, who handles resort operations and expansion for The Lodge, wrote a letter to the Whitefish City Council in February expressing his family’s interest in developing a small downtown hotel. Taylor said he doesn’t know what the current status of that project is.

A major resort complex also may be destined for Whitefish. 

A feasibility study is underway for a $70 million upscale resort that would feature a 150-room hotel, indoor and outdoor pools, a water park, skating rink, trails and retail shopping plaza.

Construction activity has been increasing in Whitefish over the past three years, Taylor said. Last year the resort town had a 28 percent increase in new dwelling units over 2011 and had the highest number of remodeling projects in a decade.

“Even more intriguing on the growth front is the 2012 total construction valuation was nearly the total of the previous three years combined, and the highest since 2006,” Taylor said.

In 2012 Whitefish processed 51 single-family building permits and 24 commercial building permits, plus 101 building permits for remodeling projects.

There’s a big inventory of vacant subdivided lots ready for new construction in Whitefish. When the city updated its growth policy last year there were about 1,065 lots available, but Taylor said only the most recently approved development projects were considered in that calculation. 

Hundreds of scattered vacant lots throughout Whitefish weren’t included.

With a reduced planning staff handling the growing workload since the recession prompted cutbacks several years ago, Taylor said he will propose hiring another planner as the city heads into its budgeting process for the coming fiscal year.

“We’re pretty much overwhelmed,” he said.

 Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.