Strong construction sector sparking optimism: new Sudbury projects keeping crews busy.

• Author: Stewart, Nick
• Position: NEWS

Walking through the crowded, maze-like quarters that make up the building department at the heart of city hall, Greater Sudbury's chief building official Guido Mazza marvels at the intense activity.

"We're looking to hire four to six more people, and I don't know where we're going to put them," he says, half-laughing.

With $125.8 million in construction permits approved to the end of July, times are good for city builders, with a range of activity across all sectors, ranging from new condominums to large-scale additions to local schools to sprawling commercial projects.

Although construction values are lower than last year's total of $166.3 million, single-family housing starts have doubled this year, and there are a number of unnamed commercial projects coming down the pipe that will keep things busy, says Mazza. What's more, construction totals are skewed by the city's introduction of industrial-commercial-institutional development charges, which hit in January 2010.

In anticipation of the added cost, many developers who planned on applying for permits this year instead hustled to get their paperwork in under the deadline. This loaded up December with an additional $100 million worth of permits for a slew of projects this year.

Indeed, city staff processed $139 million dollars worth of permits that month, more than four times higher in value and number of permits than the previous December.

"That was a month never to forget for my staff," says Mazza. "They did yeoman's work to get everything out. And out of 387 permits, there were only two complaints of not being dealt with quickly enough."

As a sign of how strong local construction has become, Mazza points to the $405 million spent locally in 2009, the highest since statistics were first recorded in 1972.

It bested even the previous record of $375 million posted in 2007, when the local economy was in full swing thanks to skyrocketing nickel prices.

With a broad number of projects underway, Mazza expects this year will match last year's banner totals, especially now that the strike by nearly 3,000 workers at local mining operations at Vale has come to a close. Local architects are so busy that many are being forced to turn down work, he adds.

"I think we've weathered things fairly well, and now with our labour issue settled, we're going to start seeing even greater strength," says Mazza. "It shows there's a healthy, resilient market that is really vibrant right now. It can go nowhere but...