With a nasty spat with its largest shareholder now in the rear-view mirror, Calgary`s TransAlta Corp. is pondering the road ahead with a map it believes will lead to steady growth on its home turf in Western Canada and the United States.
However, it`s a road that -- aside from the $1.6-billion Keephills 3 supercritical coal project now underway with partner Epcor Utilities Inc. -- doesn`t include any new coal-fired generation builds for the foreseeable future, TransAlta president and chief executive Steve Snyder told the Herald in an interview.
Alberta`s resale housing market is cooling in the same manner as Calgary`s with sales dropping and new listings rising dramatically in February, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.
The association`s latest MLS data show unit sales for residential properties (single-family homes and condos) in the province decreased by 30.3 per cent compared with a year ago in February (6,602 to 4,601) while new listings increased by 44.9 per cent (from 7,800 to 11,302).
Work on the Glenmore water treatment plant will start in the next couple of months after it received all of the necessary city approvals.
The $140-million expansion plan went before the city`s planning commission on Wednesday.
"After these approvals, we hope to get going very quickly," said Jim Miller, manager of infrastructure delivery with the city`s water resources department. "It`s probably about a two-year construction period."
EDMONTON -- Alberta is quietly looking at whether it should regulate the payday loan industry.
But with the deadline for submissions only weeks away, some agencies that deal with the working poor were not even aware of the review. Without issuing a news release, the government posted its discussion paper proposal to regulate the industry March 17 on the Service Alberta Department website.
EDMONTON - The buyer still reigns in Edmonton`s housing market, where the number of homes for sale has skyrocketed by 268 per cent from a year ago.
Figures released by the Realtors Association of Edmonton today show there were 9,464 residential properties available at the end of March in the Edmonton area - up by 1,220 homes from February.
EDMONTON - Work on the third leg of Edmonton`s LRT system will begin in June, a new report says.
Only one small 180-metre part of the route to NAIT will be done, assuming council gives its OK.
But it`s a critical part - a tunnel that will pass through the site of the new Epcor Tower that`s about to be built on the Station Lands at 101st Street and 104th Avenue.
The Stelmach government has coughed up $85 million to settle a pricey and lengthy legal battle with hundreds of farmers who claimed the province stripped a large share of their water rights several decades ago.
But critics are raising questions about whether it`s an exorbitant bailout, and want to know all the details of the agreement and exactly how the issue has been put to rest.
Higher airfares failed to deter travellers from taking to the skies in droves in March, with WestJet Airlines Ltd. notching yet another record month for traffic.
Buoyed by the Easter weekend, Calgary-based WestJet, Canada`s No. 2 carrier, reported a load factor of 86.6 per cent for month, up 1.4 percentage points over March 2007.
Capacity, measured in available seat miles, increased 19.6 per cent, to 1.43 billion. Revenue passenger miles improved 21.7 per cent to 1.24 billion.
EDMONTON - The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected an aboriginal claim to most of southeast Edmonton, land that is now worth an estimated $2.5 billion.
In a unanimous decision released Thursday, the court ruled members of the Papaschase Indian band waited too long to launch a civil lawsuit, and that they are now barred from doing so by Alberta`s statute of limitations.
EDMONTON - Work on the third leg of Edmonton`s LRT system can begin in June, if city council gives its OK, a new report says.
Only 180 metres of the route to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology will be done, but it`s a critical part -- a tunnel that will pass under the site where the new Epcor Tower is about to be built on 101st Street and 104th Avenue.
EDMONTON - Residents of Glendon are worried proposed drilling will damage Minnie Lake, the village`s backup water supply.
Minnie Lake is tiny, and in the past 20 years, the water level has dropped three metres.
Cyndie Kissel, whose family owns a cabin at the lake, said she is worried about what further development around the lake might do. The lake is fed by runoff and aquifers, and there are no streams running into it, she said. So if drilling somehow disrupts or contaminates the flow of this water, Minnie Lake could be in even more trouble, Kissel said.
Year-over-year price growth for resale homes in Calgary was eight to 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year depending on the style of property -- outstripping the average pace set across the country, says a national report.
A house price survey released Thursday by Royal LePage Real Estate Services shows the average price for a detached bungalow in the city rose by 9.9 per cent to $442,852 while a standard two-storey home saw an 8.3 per cent hike to $445,792 and a standard condominium was up 7.8 per cent to $281,807 for the first three months of 2008.
Seems like it was just yesterday that Nova Corp. and TransCanada PipeLines rocked our world -- or at least downtown Calgary -- by announcing they were going to merge and create a $21-billion mega-energy corporation.
But it`s been a decade since two of the city`s corporate icons smooshed themselves together in an unlikely amalgamation that one observer at the time suggested was a lot like GI Joe meeting the Care Bears.
Even with Alberta`s frantic pace of economic expansion moderating, figures released Friday indicate the province has never before employed more people and the rate of Albertans working or looking has risen to a Canadian record high.
And that`s pushed Albertans` wages higher, faster than any other province.
According to my trusty Collins English Dictionary, the word condominium describes the joint rule of a state or a territory by two or more states. Then I clicked onto Wikipedia for a more modern translation.
Technically a condo is the whole collection of individual home units along with the land upon which they sit. Anything held outside the boundaries of an individual unit is held in undivided ownership interest by a corporation established at the time of the condominium`s creation.
Because of Calgary`s rapid growth, it can be hard to keep track of all its neighbourhoods. The following is part of an ongoing series profiling communities in Calgary -- from older, inner-city areas to the newest suburbs on the city`s outskirts.
At first glance, the expression "urban village" is an oxymoron.
In his engaging book, City Comforts, author David Sucher says the term sums up our desire for both autonomy and community.
Diversification, changing with the times, going with the flow.
Whatever the term, Assured Developments has job sites, blueprints and an in-depth corporate strategy to deal with the changing face -- and housing styles -- of a growing number of Calgary`s multi-family homebuyers.
