Thanks to new apartment projects and restarting old ones, Seattle is seeing a jump in permit applications.

Mayor Mike McGinn posted on his blog Tuesday that 47 master use permit applications were submitted in June.

Department of Planning and Development spokesman Bryan Stevens said the city hasn't seen that many MUP applications in a month since September of 2008.

“We have seen a noticeable change over the past few months,” Stevens said. “It's not clear at this point if that's going to be enough to establish a trend, but we're watching it closely.”

The projects are getting larger. Stevens said the project value of permits issued so far this year is $1.1 billion compared to $718 million in the same period last year.

“An increase in project value for new construction permits appears to be the difference over the last few months,” Stevens said. “Many of those are projects that were previously on hold due to the economy.”

One restarted project is Prescott Development's Stone Way Village at 3920 Stone Way N. The project will have 154 apartments and 17,000 square feet of retail, with an estimated construction cost of $25 million. The site was an excavated pit for more than three years after a previous project was stopped in 2007. Stevens said work restarted in January.

Here are some notable projects going through DPD:

• 1200 Madison by Holland Partner Group: 237 apartments with 7,000 square feet of retail that broke ground in late April. Construction is estimated at $44 million.

• Safeway at Admiral by Madison Development Group: 78 apartments with 60,000 square feet of retail at 2622 California Ave. S.W. that started in late 2010. Construction cost is $15 million

• 514 E. Pine St. by Pine & Belmont LLC: 108 apartments with 12,000 square feet of retail that broke ground in February on a site that sat vacant for a couple of years. Construction cost is $14.8 million

• 901 Dexter Ave. N. by Holland Partner Group and Capstone: previously approved permit being revised to include 284 apartments and 2,500 square feet of retail. The proposal is under review.

DPD has laid off nearly 150 staff members — about a third of its workforce — since the economy slowed down. McGinn blogged that members of the Master Builders Association told him at a May 5 dinner that it was taking them as long as nine weeks to get an intake meeting.

MBA CEO Sam Anderson said in an Aug. 23, 2010, DJC article that he was worried layoffs would hurt the building industry when the economy improves. He said it's difficult for public agencies to ramp up, and when demand increases they won't have enough money to hire staff to generate revenue.

McGinn blogged that DPD can now schedule an intake appointment within two weeks. He said they increased service by revising some intake processes, bringing back a former employee as a temporary hire and shifting resources to meet the greatest demand.

Stevens said, “It took some time to reorganize our staff and bring some people back.”