By NICK STEWART
The North Bay’s building department recently revealed that construction permits for the year reached a record-breaking $101,264,797.
“It’s been a really, really good roll,” says Shawn Killins, the city’s chief building official. “It’s just been a terrific spike in construction values these last few years, and 2006 nicely continues the trend.”
More than 750 permits were issued in 2006. Leading the commercial component were projects like the new 100-unit Holiday Inn Express, which is still under construction adjacent to the Information Centre.
Institutional projects included were renovations to Ecole Secondaire Algonquin and the early stages of construction on the Ecole Publique Elementaire, a new $11-million French elementary school on Connaught Avenue.
In the industrial sector, Cementation Canada announced it will expand local operations by purchasing a 7.7-acre parcel of land in the Birch’s Road Industrial Park as part of the Air Base Property Corporation’s dollar-an-acre strategy. Construction has yet to begin on the $1 million facility.
The average value of annual construction projects have typically amounted to $45 million throughout most of the last decade, though it has been gradually increasing in recent years. The numbers spiked in 2004, at $71,264,797, the second-highest total in the city’s history. The 2005 total was $56 million.
The city’s $30 million water treatment plant caused the big jump in 2006, Killins says.
“You really have to consider the water treatment facility to be an anomaly, although the strong totals in either year are still indicative of a really strong surge in the region.”
Killins attributes much of this growth to a strong local economy and a growing population. These strengths are expected to play a role in 2007, which should be another banner year for the local construction market if early numbers are any indication, he says.
In January alone, the value of building permits issued by the city totaled $2,120,000. Of that total, $656,000 is related to the construction or alteration of housing units and apartments. The remainder is primarily related to improvements and expansion in the commercial and industrial sectors, including $760,000 worth of work slated to be done to the Northgate Square and North Bay Mall.
Although this marks an improvement over numbers seen throughout the prior decade, it represents an average value throughout the last few years, Killens says. January totals in 2004 were $1.9 million, as compared to $2.3 million in 2005 and $2 million 2006.
“It’s in keeping with the numbers over some of our best years, so that’s certainly encouraging,” he says.
Mayor Vic Fedeli says these values are representative of his expectations for the coming year, which he says will likely be focused less on housing and more on other sectors.
“Based on what we know and what we’ve already seen in January, we’re expecting industrial and commercial to explode,” Fedeli says. “It was the dead of winter, only the first month of the year, and we were already into the millions. We’re going to have a very robust year, really commercial and really industrial.”
These values are in line with official city forecasts, which predict that North Bay will see approximately $60 million in industrial and commercial building permits in 2007.
One project is a new, unnamed hotel to be located next to the new Holiday Inn Express. Currently under development, this new hotel is being built on a single-acre $363,000 plot of land and will feature 85 units across five or six stories. It is unknown as to when construction will begin, as Killins says the permit application has not yet been submitted.
Negotiations are also underway for an unnamed industrial company to purchase property in the Birch’s Road Industrial Park, for which an announcement is expected in the near future.
“All the economic indicators are there that this is going to be a very good year for construction in the city,” Killins says. “There’s a lot to look forward to.”
