SALEM — The economic development committee forwarded the renewal of the city’s contracts with the Sustainable Opportunity Development (SOD) Center and its third-party commercial building department Elevate Building Solutions to the city council for review.

The city’s current contract with the SOD Center has a term of two-years at an annual price of $85,000 and will expire at the end of the year, while its contract with Elevate Building Solutions has an annual cost of $25,000 and isn’t set to expire until 2026.

SOD Center and Elevate Executive Director Julie Needs told the committee Tuesday that proposed renewals for both contracts would remain at their current annual price, with the only change being an increased term of three years, meaning that if approved by city council, the city would retain the SOD Center’s services until 2029, and Elevate’s services until 2030.

The committee voted unanimously to forward the renewal of both contracts to the city council for review at its next meeting.

Needs also presented the committee with third quarter updates for both SOD and Elevate. Needs said that Elevate with the end of the third quarter has issued 133 building permits this year, exceeding the 125 permits issued in the entirety of 2024, with the fourth quarter still to come. That increase in the number of permits issued has led to more than double 2024’s annual project cost total of $27,032,150, as of quarter three this year with a current total of $56,701,120.

Needs attributed this spike to the Salem City School district securing the necessary permits and inspection for its new K-8 school building project.

Needs also said that two new retailers are set to open their doors downtown, noting that one would be opening at the end of the month with the other to come “fairly soon after,” and five renovations projects progressing downtown. The SOD Center also assisted with coordinating financial resources for the sale of a building downtown, noting that more information about the sale would be made available soon.

The SOD Center’s third quarter also saw the completion of the anonymous stakeholder survey for the city’s new five-year economic development plan. Needs said the survey had 593 responses in approximately 45 days, with respondents from a range of ages and genders, and both people living and working in the city and visitors. A total of 72.6% of respondents were permanent residents, of which 34.60% also work in the city, while 10.7% only worked in the city, and 16.7% neither lived nor worked in the city. The survey was also fully completed by most respondents, with an 82% completion rate, which Needs noted was 7% higher than the industry standard.