Construction starts for downtown condos soar in first 9 months
New construction is on the rise for apartment-style condos in downtown Calgary and the city’s Beltline district this year.
Despite overall condo starts in the Calgary census metropolitan area dipping between Jan. 1 and the end of September to 2,882 from 4,333 during the same period in 2015, it’s been a different story closer to the city’s core.
Between Jan. 1 and the end of September, construction starts on condos in downtown Calgary soared 87 per cent year over year, says Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
Shovels turned for 862 of these units nine months into 2016, eclipsing 461 from a year earlier. Following 2014, this was the strongest performance for this time frame in at least five years, says CMHC.
“I think what we’re seeing is that some of these projects were likely planned in the last couple of years. As a result, they hit a point where they wanted to go ahead with construction,” says CMHC principal of market analysis Richard Cho.
“Things are expected to gradually improve over the next couple of years,” he adds. “With that, some buildings will take a couple of years to be built and finished, and in some cases, it’s possible these buildings will be finished at a time when the economy will be doing better than what we’re seeing now.”
The 289 downtown condo starts in September tied July for most in a month this year.
While falling short of the upswing recorded downtown, new construction in the Beltline has also improved this year. Nine months into 2016, 392 condos took root in the historic district, edging 372 from the 2015 time frame. Most of the Beltline’s starts this year came in July, when 332 condos broke ground, says CMHC.
The count on completed condos for downtown and the Beltline also rose this year. There were 1,002 condos in the Beltline year to date, after none were completed during the period a year ago. For downtown condos, completions increased to 784 from 369.
Falling short, however, is the number of condos under construction in both areas. At the end of September, construction was underway on 1,616 condos downtown and 1,176 in the Beltline. A year earlier, downtown had 2,194 condos under construction and there were 1,507 in the Beltline.
While resale of apartments close to the city’s core has picked up in recent months, it’s 181 transactions short of the 2015 pace year to date, says the Calgary Real Estate Board.
Between Jan. 1 and the end of September, there were 1,023 apartment sales in an area CREB outlines as the city centre, comprised of downtown, the Beltline and other inner-city neighbourhoods. The area saw 1,204 sales a year earlier.
In September, 114 apartments were sold through the resale market in Calgary’s city centre, after 104 changed hands during the same month in 2015.
The benchmark resale price on apartments in the city core in September was $300,900, a seven per cent dip year over year. Benchmark prices are for a typical home, based on a formula using various factors to ensure accurate comparisons.