Construction is on an upswing in Salmon Arm.
Going by the building permit stats for April, the city is currently en route to one of its most promising construction years since 2008.
Last month, the city had issued $20,789,869 worth of permits. That’s about $5 million more than what was issued for all of 2013, which included $10 million in new commercial development related to the SmartCentres development. This year, the city has already issued about $6.3 million in new commercial, and $533,600 in additions to commercial development.
Coun. Alan Harrison called last month’s stats ‘very encouraging.’ He also noted how, in addition to the new commercial and institutional development (including $6.5 million related to the new Columbia Shuswap Regional District building), the city is also enjoying a little boom in multi-family residential development.
“We haven’t had much multi-family in the last five or six years, just because the demand hasn’t been there,” said Harrison. “We do have $2.3 million in building permits for 27 units going in under multi family and I think that’s a really good sign for our economy.”
“I’ve been told there’s something like $40 million on the books when you take into consideration the build-outs at SmartCentres and the facility for the CSRD and the addition to the Lakeshore Manor, the new one on the corner of 20th and Lakeshore, so there’s quite a bit of institutional/commercial type building happening,” added Coun. Marg Kentel. “So it’s all good, and when I think about all the lots that are coming on from the previous development we just discussed, we’re in good shape to keep moving the economy ahead here.”