JACKSON SEES A RECORD YEAR; OKs $21 MILLION IN BUILDING; AVERAGE NEW HOME COSTS $105,000

The city of Jackson authorized a record $21,794,466 worth of commercial and residential construction last year.

The bombshell was Wal-Mart, currently erecting a $3.25 million structure along Highway 72. Across the busy highway, Mercantile Bank is putting in a $496,000 branch. (To get a real feeling for the kind of growth that Jackson is experiencing, let's look at 1992, when $7 million worth of construction was authorized.)

According to figures compiled by Leisa Floyd, secretary for the city's Building Department, another big plus was the St. Paul Lutheran Church's multipurpose building, a $2 million project.

Single-family home construction continued its explosive growth last year. The city approved the construction of 119 homes. The average cost of a building a new home in Jackson is $105,000. Jackson has averaged about 113 new homes for the last five years.

Jackson also authorized eight subdivisions. Several offer only a couple of lots, but the Rosewood Estates Fifth Subdivision provides 59, the Bent Creek Spring Lake addition, 38, and the Fairfield Estates Second Subdivision, 27. Total number of lots okayed: 135.

Apartment construction may have slowed, but it's still occurring. A 10-unit apartment building and an eight-unit structure, each costing more than $400,000, were authorized last year. "They were strong a few years ago. Then we had a two- or three-year lull, and now they're strong again," Mayor Paul Sander said.

Here are some other facts and figures from the annual report compiled by Floyd: Duplexes, 10 for $1.1 million; single-family additions, 87 for $360,000; pools, 16 for $170,000; and commercial and industrial additions, 32 for $854,878.

The record year for home construction was 1994, when 154 homes were authorized, but the figure has ranged from 73 to 113 since then. Not bad when, as Mayor Sander says, most small communities are happy to have 10 to 15 new homes per year.