It was a solid month for building permits in the city of North Battleford, but it was the prospect of even more projects that had councillors excited at Monday’s meeting.
The permit report for July was presented to council Monday. For the month of July, 13 permits were issued for a permit value of $895,500, which is up from eight permits for $826,700 for the same month a year ago.
Three commercial alterations for $497,000 and three new industrial permits for $315,000 made up the bulk of the permit values for the month
Overall, 80 permits have been issued for 2016 for a permit value of $11,783,400, compared to 68 permits for $16,255,000 through July of last year.
While permit values are currently down for the year, city officials expect the numbers to catch up soon as a number of major projects still to come in the near future.
Those include the new Quality Inn and Suites hotel construction in the southeast quadrant, the new five-screen Magic Lanterns cinema downtown, plus a new Kal Tire and new A&W.
Those permits are likely to be reflected in August and September numbers. It was also confirmed at the meeting that a sod-turning event for the new Quality Inn was to happen sometime later this month.
Overall, council was pleased to see continued strong building numbers in North Battleford to this point, with councillor Ryan Bater pointing out that some other Saskatchewan cities were seeing some very low numbers this year.
Mayor Ian Hamilton described the numbers as “very encouraging for the confidence being expressed in our economy.”
