THE YEAR’S TOP STORIES
Major projects include $312.5M care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital, $14M expansion of the Penticton Lakeside Resort; $25M Cascades Casino Penticton
Real estate sales in the South Okanagan eclipsed $1 billion this year for the first time ever, while Penticton celebrated a record-setting level of construction within city limits.
Through the end of November, the value of real estate transactions throughout the region stood at $1.07 billion, up from $747 million in the same year-ago period, according to statistics from the South Okanagan Real Estate Board.
Those same numbers show nearly half the region’s total resulted from sales in Penticton alone.
Transaction values in the city hit $446 million through November, easily topping the $340 million recorded in the first 11 months of 2015.
“Extraordinarily busy is certainly an accurate statement pertaining to the South Okanagan real estate market this year,” said SOREB president Garry Gratton.
“We are definitely on track towards a record-setting banner year of unprecedented overall market activity.”
Gratton attributed the market’s strength to a variety of factors, including low interest rates, pent-up demand and spill-over from the Lower Mainland.
“In addition, the long-term cyclical market trend indicators are now pointing to increased demand and a shortage of real estate product, meaning rising prices,” he said.
Gratton estimated about 40 per cent of recent buyers are locals, while another 30 per cent are from the Lower Mainland.
Meanwhile, staff in the City of Penticton’s permitting department had no idea at the time, but an approval issued Sept. 21 for an $800,000 reclamation job at a gravel pit on Ridgedale Avenue officially moved the community into record-setting territory.
That permit lifted to $153.4 million the value of all construction work approved in Penticton up to that point in 2016, eclipsing the old annual record of $152.9 million set in 2006.
“We knew it was high — we didn’t actually know it was a record,” Ken Kunka, the city’s building and permitting manager, said after being alerted about the occasion.
And the figure only kept climbing, hitting $189 million by the end of November.
Driving the local construction sector is a handful of large projects:
• $312.5-million care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital.
• $14-million, 70-room expansion of the Penticton Lakeside Resort. • $25-million Cascades Casino Penticton. • $10-million, 12-storey residential tower on Skaha Lake Road.
“This is significant not only in terms of revenue for the city, but it will also help grow our tax base,” Mayor Andrew Jakubeit said in a statement.
“It’s great see all the construction going on around the city and know that people who used to leave town for work now have stable employment right here in Penticton and can work locally to provide for their family and better immerse themselves into our community.”