Building Again

From luxury homes to condo towers and restaurants, banks are lending money to build and renovate buildings.

Construction and land-development loans totaled $786 million as of March 31 at 41 banks headquartered from Pasco to Collier counties, up 19% compared to one year ago, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Although that's a significant improvement and a substantial increase, that amount is nowhere near the billions that banks loaned during the boom. For example, now-defunct Orion Bank reported $1 billion in construction and land-development loans at year-end 2006.