By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The home and commercial building sectors in Alabaster are continuing their comeback, and have already topped year-end totals for 2010-2012, according to the city’s Department of Building Safety.

In July, the department issued 13 new home building permits, bringing the year-to-date total to 59 new home permits through the first seven months of the year. The 59 permits issued through July were for homes valued at a total of more than $15.4 million.

By comparison, the city had issued 43 new home building permits for homes valued at a total of about $9.5 million through the first seven months of 2014.

At the end of 2010, the city had only issued 29 new home permits, followed by 30 at the end of 2011 and 57 at the end of 2012. In 2013, the city issued a total of 61 new home permits, and recorded 77 at the end of last year. If current trends continue, the city’s housing market will top last year’s total number of new homes.

Alabaster has also seen a surge in its number of residential remodeling permits. At the end of July 2014, the department had issued 70 residential addition or remodel permits for projects valued at a little more than $1 million, compared to 148 remodel permits for projects valued at $1.4 million through the end of July this year.

In the commercial sector, Alabaster issued no permits for new commercial buildings in July, bringing the year-to-date total to eight permits. Despite issuing no new commercial building permits in July, the year-to-date total is still higher than the three commercial building permits the city had issued through the first seven months of 2014.

Alabaster has already issued more new commercial building permits this year than it did in all of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014.

At the end of July this year, the city had issued 52 commercial remodeling permits for projects valued at a total of more than $1.4 million, compared to 20 permits for projects valued at a total of more than $7.8 million through July of last year.