Apartment construction leads way in Calgary in April
Mix of rental and condo units helps push multi-family projects up 19 per cent in year
New construction of multi-family development in the Calgary area in April soared 19 per cent from the same time in 2017.
Shovels were in the ground for 862 multi-family units last month, up from 697 a year earlier, says Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Multi-family starts in the Calgary census metropolitan area were the busiest of any urban centre in the province, topping 369 in the Edmonton census metropolitan area.
The census metropolitan area counts activity from nearby cities and towns, and in Calgary’s case, includes Airdrie, Cochrane, and Chestermere. Within Calgary city limits, multi-family starts grew to 818 from 631 year over year.
“The increase was largely due to apartments,” says Richard Cho, CMHC’s principal of market analysis. “We had quite a strong number of apartments that started construction in April.”
There were 688 starts on apartments in the Calgary area last month, rising from 431 a year ago.
“Apartment projects tend to fluctuate month to month in terms of activity,” Cho says. “April was one of those months where a lot of projects broke ground for both rentals and condo apartments.”
Supply of new apartments in the Calgary area is starting to ease, says CMHC. There were 1,039 constructed and unabsorbed units in this segment last month, down from 1,170 year over year.
“We are seeing inventory on the apartment side begin to move lower,” Cho says. “We hit a record level in December and since then supply numbers have been coming down. For the rest of the year, we are expecting a downward trend in some of those supply figures. But even with the downward movement, the level will likely be fairly elevated.”
New construction of townhome developments and duplexes in the Calgary area took a step back last month. Ground broke for 108 duplexes, down from 114 a year ago, and townhomes dipped to 66 from 152.
“Overall, I think the economy has been slowly recovering,” Cho says. “When we look the singlefamily homes, (semi-detached) and row (townhome) activity, it has been relatively more steady. We expect to see a similar trend for the balance of the year. We’re not expecting to see any pronounced increases or decreases in those numbers for 2018.”
Year to date, there have been 1,203 total starts on multi-family construction in the Calgary area, up from 1,099 during the same period in 2017, says CMHC.