City centre seeing some growth
The southside may be the site of new marquee commercial building projects, but new figures suggest the city centre is getting its share as well.
About one-third of commercial building, renovation and development permits in 2017 were attached to addresses in the downtown or other mature, central communities — areas typically overshadowed by major projects in relatively newer areas.
City general manager of planning services Kent Snyder pointed to the trend while presenting his department’s 2017 report to the Municipal planning commission this week.
“Some of that speaks to the state of the general local economy; we’re fixing what we’ve got rather than building new. But it is reinvestment in our older nighbourhoods.”
Non-residential building permits in the city core, comprising downtown, Riverside, the Flats and Southeast Hill made up 33 per cent of the total.
Residential permits were more evenly distributed but even then, central communities stayed even in terms of redevelopment and renovations. While major new commercial buildings are going up in the extreme south, downtown is seeing activity as well.
One such project in the city centre is an expansion of the Reliance Insurance offices on Sixth Avenue, where a new two-storey addition will double the size of the 3,800square-foot office to accommodate new employees.
“We were bursting at the seams here and looking to hire more staff, but have no where to put them,” said general manager Justin Cunningham on Friday.
“We have a free-standing building downtown, which is one of few. We think we have great real estate here, so why build new in some other area of the city when we can just expand here.”
Over all sectors, including residential, commercial and institutional projects, the value of building permits fell from $125 million in 2016 to $113 million last year.
Continued weakness in the new housing market was offset by major commercial projects, such as hotel construction at the east end of Strachan Road.
“It is the lowest total in five years,” said Snyder.
“But some other indicators are looking up. We think that it could be the bottom and we will be trending up.”
Most new residential building occurred south of the Trans-Canada Highway in new communities of Vista, the Hamptons and Southlands.
However, nearly 60 per cent of all residential development permits, including redevelopments, renovations and garages, were projects in mature neighbourhoods.
That includes even distributions of one-fifth in three older areas. They were north of the river, excluding Riverside, mature sections of the Flatsdowntown-Riverside-andSouth Hill, and mature areas between the Seven Persons Creek and the No. 1 highway.