Alberta Non-Residential Construction Holds Steady in 2015
- January 19, 2016
- By Cody Battershill
Some Good News: Alberta's Commercial and Industrial Spending Stayed Strong Last Year
While Alberta’s residential real estate market is slowing down, one industry that has managed to do quite alright throughout 2015 is the non-residential construction sector. This is one economic indicator in which the province still yet has to see a substantial amount of lessened activity in.
If you live in Calgary or Edmonton, you might agree that looking around there is a ton of non-residential construction happening around the city!
A whopping $2.74 billion was spent in the fourth-quarter of 2015 on non-residential construction, a figure that remained relatively the same as that from the same time frame in 2014. On an annual basis, 2015 saw an increase of one percent over the previous year on the total amount spent.
The largest part of non-residential construction is commercial projects such as downtown office towers, shopping plazas and other large retail buildings. While commercial construction was down from $1.83 billion in the third quarter compared to the fourth quarters $1.77 billion, the amount spent remained near record levels.
Another part of non-residential construction – the industrial sector – made up plenty for that small decrease in spending seen in commercial construction.
Decreased Spending
On the other hand, the biggest drop seen in non-residential construction was that related to government and institutions, however, that could change with recent promises made by Ottawa to increase spending on infrastructure in an attempt to kick start the economy upward.
While commercial and industrial construction managed to do fairly well in 2015, it is expected that they will take a hit over the year to come. Countless companies have already downsized their expenses and with tons of new office space coming onto the market it’s possible that another new skyscraper won’t be announced for quite some time.
More Economic Articles
Want to know more on how Alberta’s economy is currently doing? See some of our latest and most relevant economic articles at our Canadian Economics Summary today.
