Boom baby: Prolific building pace in 2015 set to repeat in 2016 with a few new surprises
By Timothy Schafer
A surprise structure for the downtown and a new owner for the former Kutenai Landing waterfront property are in store for the real estate and development industry in the city in 2016, says the city’s manager of development services.
Pam Mierau, said the promise of the new year for Nelson will likely surge ahead like 2015 did, but in several new directions, including another development project slated for the downtown — the details of which are still considered confidential.
“But it’s looking like more residential right in our downtown,” she said earlier this week.
The new project will add some diversity to the downtown like the now-under-construction Nelson Commons is doing to the east end of Baker Street, Mierau explained.
She had been involved in planning in Calgary for 30 years — after growing up in Nelson — and witnessed the city struggle to realize commercial and residential, mixed use buildings for years, but rarely succeed.
“And now we will have this one right in downtown Nelson. Tiny Nelson,” she said with a smile. “But Nelson is so progressive. That is the thing I am continually surprised at.”
Mierau will not be surprised if something moves on the former Kutenai Landing waterfront site this year. She noted that after a planning company came to the city last summer at the behest of a German developer — but an ensuing deal fell through — the land has been sold as of Dec. 3.
“I am expecting something will come in this year on that, but you never know,” she said. “We should see some movement on that this year.”
The year of 2015 saw some major movement in the building industry. The total of building permits for the year nearly doubled, going from $18.3 million in 2014 to $33.5 million (149 permits to 187) at the conclusion of December.
In addition to Nelson Commons driving the development vehicle in 2015, Mierau pointed to the emergence of Nelson Landing as a major player on the development stage in the city.
The entire waterfront parcel was rezoned in 2015, paving the way for the start of construction on 265 total units of housing, restaurants, senior’s housing, commercial space and small, single-family cottage-type homes on the former Kootenay Forest Products industrial site.
“There is lots of diversity in that area and that was a big deal because it’s our last large, waterfront, vacant site in the city,” she said.
And it had been sitting vacant for a long time because it was contaminated as a former industrial site, said Mierau, but the land will now be remediated when the first eight-plex arrives this year.
This year should see the Nelson Commons project finishing and people moving in to the building, with the building owner — the Kootenay Co-operative — also taking their place on the main floor.
She predicted that the Crossing at Granite Pointe in Rosemont would have another multi-unit start, after “great sales” on their first 10-plex development.
As well, Mierau said the Shambhala Music Festival’s renovation at the west end of Baker Street — the former Savoy Hotel structure — should continue with the construction of a boutique hotel on the top floor of the structure.
One project that could come to fruition this year is Kootenay Christian Fellowship’s affordable housing structure for the same block as Shambhala’s development.
“There has been a lot of planning done, and they will likely get to a point where they will have to make a decision to go one way or another,” said Mierau, but she was fairly confident they would go ahead with the project.
Mierau also noted that Selkirk College received $18 million in capital funding for expansion, including the Silver King campus, and construction will commence this year.
The city’s Rail Town district also has real potential for development in 2016, said Mierau. Land on the north side of Government Road — once deemed contaminated due to previous bulk fuel plants and other industry — has now been remediated. The owner has made it known that the land could be developed, said Mierau.
Not far away, four city-owned houses in the Cottonwood Falls area are slated for demolition as the city is expected to look for a buyer to develop the land.
The new year should herald the dawn of creativity in real estate development, said Mierau. There are very few vacant lots left to build on in the city, she said, so what will have to happen is larger lots being subdivided.
“Now we are going to have to get more creative, because there aren’t a lot of vacant sites,” she said. “People want to live in Nelson.”
