Building permits climb over $100M in Moncton

 Job sites across Moncton are mostly quiet on Saturday, but the turned off machines don’t represent this years construction season to date.

“We’ve issued about 641 building permits at $114.3 million,” said City of Moncton Planning & Development director, Bill Budd.

“I think we are exactly where we need to be. We’ve had three record years of construction breaking records.”

Looking at 2023, he says the city is “up” for commercial, industrial and intuitional construction, with more projects still expected to come down the pipeline.

“I think in terms of renovation to government buildings and schools and hospitals, we’re at about $7.6 million so we’re ahead of where we were last year, but we haven’t had any big announcement on big provincial or federal projects, but we’re expecting a couple of big project, which later this month one will get going and one later in the fall,” he said.

Adding that compared to last year, commercial industrial construction is also ahead and has been a very strong sector this year.

However, while Moncton’s growing skyline is a testimony to the work being done, Budd says there is one area that is legging slightly behind – residential construction.

“We’re down about 44 per cent there,” he said.

“For example, last year we had about 834 units at $134 million, we’re at 374 units so far at $59 million. The big drop there relates to apartment units and primarily these large builders can take up to two years.”

While fewer residential permits have been issued so far this year, it hasn’t impacted production at The Greater Moncton Home Builders Association. Executive director, Denise Charron says it’s been a busy season for not only Moncton, but for the entire tri-community and surrounding municipalities as well.

“What I’m seeing more this summer is the new home construction, the row house and multi-units dwelling,” she said.

“I would say from last year, it has grown more because people are downsizing, but also people we have new comers, not only from central Canada and West Canada but also from other countries, so I think the demand as to multi-units, as we call apartments, has been a big focus among developers and builders,” she said.

The Greater Moncton Home Builders Association covers a 50 kilometre radius around the City of Moncton.

At the half way point in the construction season, she says this year has been good for everyone so far including builders and sub-trades.

“From discussions, [members are] already looking into the new year of 2024, so that’s encouraging also. Hearing that there’s other projects incoming in 2024, so it represents well what has been going on in 2023 will certainly reflect, hopefully for 2024,” said Charron.

As far as predictions go, there’s still a lot more of construction season left this year.

“I would say we might get another 100-150 million dollars in construction for the rest of the year, could even be higher, depending on what projects come forward,” said Budd.

Right now, there are several projects underway in Moncton spanning from multi unit apartment buildings to modular classrooms to a new dealership.

At the Greater Moncton Home Builders Association, Charron says she expects the association to overpass what was originally predicted for this year.

“From last years data and also what was happening in discussions and conversations that we’re having with our members, that it was going to be quite a summer, I think for many it went above because they were able to pursue earlier than probably predicted,” she said.

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