GOING UP. The new Children's Museum of Eau Claire, shown under construction in 2022, helped boost construction numbers for the city and county.

It’s not just your imagination: From big public projects to industrial properties to housing, construction has been booming in Eau Claire County, and some new state statistics show just how much.

The county experienced a total of $373 million worth of net new construction in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended June 30. That’s a 3.16% increase over the total equalized value in the county the previous year, a growth rate that put it No. 1 among Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

Projects that boosted those figures included the renovation of the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library in Eau Claire, the construction of the new Children’s Museum of Eau Claire, the new County Highway Department facility, and numerous new businesses, industrial sites, housing developments, and more, said the Eau Claire Area Economic Development Corp.

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We knew we were going to have a good year, but we didn’t know we were going to have the highest growth rate in the state.

LUKE HANSON

executive director, eau claire area economic development corp.

“We knew we were going to have a good year, but we didn’t know we were going to have the highest growth rate in the state,” said Luke Hanson, executive director of the EDC, a nonprofit public-private agency that promotes economic growth in Eau Claire County.

“We are seeing a lot of growth in multiple areas,” Hanson added. “In the past years we’ve had a significant increase in our population growth,” which in turn has led to additional housing and commercial construction, he said.

Aaron White, community development director for the city of Eau Claire, agreed that growth seems to be continuing unabated. “The last four years we have been pushing the envelope in terms of evaluations,” he said. “The growth has been steady; it hasn’t slacked off.”

Beyond the value provided by new facilities, homes, and businesses, the net growth benefits local governments and taxpayers: Growth allows municipalities to increase the total amount of property taxes they collect without raising tax rates for everyone.

According to the annual Net New Construction Report recently released by the state Department of Revenue, more than half of the growth in the county came in the City of Eau Claire, which experienced $218.8 million in growth in fiscal 2023, an increase of 3.03%. That growth rate put Eau Claire behind only Wauwatosa among the 20 largest municipalities in the state.

Meanwhile, the experience in the City of Altoona was much more dramatic. Altoona had $102.5 million in net new construction growth, a 10.1% increase. That’s the highest growth rate of any Wisconsin municipality with more than $1 billion worth of property value, according to the state data.

And these weren’t just one-year trends. In the 2022 fiscal year, Eau Claire County added $287 million worth of net new construction, a 2.71% increase, placing the county among the five fastest growing counties in Wisconsin that year. And that year the City of Eau Claire saw $222 million in net new construction, a 3.42% increase. (According to the Department of Revenue, net new construction is equal to the value of new construction minus the value of any buildings demolished or destroyed.)

Hanson said he wouldn’t be surprised if the healthy pace of growth continues in the coming year. “Eau Claire has been recognized as a place where people want to live, to relocate, to raise their families, to have their children educated here, and to work,” he said.

Learn more about the Eau Claire Area EDC at www.eauclaire-wi.com.