Almost $350 million in construction value across 996 total permits issues in Kamloops last year.
Building and Engineering Development Manager Jason Dixon says it was the third largest year on record in terms of construction value. It came in behind 2022 where $415 million in value was issued and 2020 had $395 million in construction value.
In past years there have been major one off projects, like the Phil and Jannie Gaglardi Tower at Royal Inland Hospital, that have helped lead to records values. Dixon says that was not the case in 2024. “The strength really comes in the more compact housing types, apartment buildings, if you will. Just for an easy descriptor, when I look at the stats, it was almost $150 million in activity in that that class versus $87 million last year.”
“When I was going through the projects for the year, there wasn’t any one big one that stood out. Starting in February, we did an apartment building in Juniper and there was a series of them through the year. The last one we did was the superstructure permit for the west tower at City gardens in November. So big project, but it’s just the concrete structural part of that building… A lot of these bigger projects will have multiple permits. So from a unit count point of view, that’s where we count 136 units. But from a construction value, it’s only that structural part, so it wasn’t a as big a component of the overall construction value as as the whole building would be.”
Dixon says apartment builds are pushing the housing stock in Kamloops and we are not seeing as many single family homes being built. “We’ve seen a trend go back to say 2015. Statistically before that, very rarely did we have apartment building type projects. It’s really been since that 2015 timeframe where whatever economics were at play pre-COVID, through COVID, and since it’s really made sense for for developers to embark on those bigger projects.”
“I think, I think a lot of things are at play. There is housing affordability. Not everybody can afford a single family home. People have to look at different options to get into the housing market, and then the building and development community is providing a product to market. So obviously, if that’s where demand is, they’re going to look to that.”
“The province did give us housing targets, and how much that really drives it at this stage, or how much that shows up statistically in 2024 is hard to say. But we fully anticipate that the changes that we’ve made to our zoning by law as a result of provincial legislation will, as we go forward, lead to more units.”
Looking ahead to 2025, Dixon says the forecasts that he and his team have put together through 2028 are projecting more solid years of construction in the Tournament Capital. “Sometimes it’s based on precursor development applications, things like a rezoning application or development permit that we know at some point going forward will lead to a building permit application.”
“Sometimes it’s just staying in touch with our social housing folks, and sort of having a finger on what BC housing might be planning and more supportive, affordable, those type of housing projects, you know, we know there’s things like the Cancer Center are, you know, hopefully on the horizon, and when I factor all those in, yeah, you know, the next few years, I think we can expect to see continued strong performance from a construction value point of view.”
“It’ll be interesting to see if other sectors of the building industry respond. Statistically, single family dwellings was lower in 2024 than 2023. I think the economics around those type of projects are a lot different for smaller builders than they are for the big developers looking at bigger projects.”
