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new car sales and a 300 percent leap in building permits.
Mr. Pearson added that Staunton’s huge building permit increase isn’t unusual, since “one building project can cause increases of well over 300 percent each for August.” Despite those surges, however, building permits rose only 7.5 percent statewide compared to August 1986.
“Zero or modestly positive increases in building permits in August and September will add further confirmation to our outlook that Virginia construction activity is not collapsing; it is merely moving to a more normal level below the 1986 peak,” said Mr. Pearson. Neverthe-. less, he said the January to August cumulative drop of 12.4 percent for Virginia building permits “is a rather modest decline for such a vol
94.2%