Last year proved to be a solid one for building in the Tournament Capital with over $415 million worth of construction activity.
Building and Engineering Development Manager Jason Dixon says it is a bit difficult to compare 2022 to the year prior because 2021 was fairly down in terms of values, but still quite normal for the volume of permits issued.
“We look at 2022 we see a marked increase in construction value. Residentially was over double. Commercial & institutional were over double. Industrial permit construction value was three times 2021. So sort of a consistent increase across all the sectors,” he said.
The City last set a record at $395-million in 2020, largely due to the Royal Inland Hospital Patient Care Tower.
Dixon says one of the big reasons for the increase in residential construction value was due to the number of apartment style buildings the city issued permits for last year.
“If you go back to 2018, 2019 and 2020 we had a marked increase in those types of projects like apartment buildings and rental units and that kind of thing. For whatever reason in 2021 we only had one or two in the whole year,” he said, noting there was a big jump in those types of projects in 2022.
“You can see that in the permits we issued for units with 816 total dwelling units permits issued for last year versus 405 the year before. The 613 apartment type units, and of those would expect just by the nature of the projects, 550-560 likely to be rental units which I think is important in the context of vacancy. And in that number there is also 79 affordable units that were created in a couple of different projects.”
Looking ahead, Dixon says it is always difficult to predict what a 12 month period will look like for the city, but notes that they do start forecasting what to expect in the coming year.
“A good example is we will be issuing some permits for the City Gardens project early this year. Obviously a very big project downtown. I think everybody is familiar with the giant hole for the parking structure foundations that is underway right now,” he said
“But there is a fair bit of variability. The activity that we saw in 2022 wasn’t entirely clear to us at the end of 2021.”