Building upon business strength brings furniture shops to Red Deer
Wanda Markin was skeptical about travelling to Arizona for a business development course.
But the experience several years ago proved to be a watershed point for The Bedroom Shoppe and The Living Room, which Markin operates with her business partner Todd Markin.
The course taught them the importance of identifying their businesses` strength and building upon that.
Red Deer`s municipal planning commission pondered on Monday the desirability of ground-level residential development in the city`s downtown core. It decided to seek input from city council.
The issue arose as a result of an application on behalf of Potter`s Hands Developments for the creation of affordable housing units on the main floor of a commercial building at 4935 51st St. In 2000, the city approved the development of 14 residential suites on the second floor of the former provincial building.
Single family housing starts slowed in the Edmonton region for the ninth month in a row, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation said today.
Foundations were poured in March for 59 per cent fewer homes than in March 2007, according to preliminary figures released by the government housing agency.
Ontario workers needed to repair streets: Boutilier
EDMONTON - If the city is going to deal with the 80 neighbourhoods in desperate need of street repair, it must bring workers from other provinces, councillors were told today.
"We`re just moving the furniture on the Titanic," warned transportation manager Bob Boutilier, if the city tried hiring more in-house road repair staff.
EDMONTON - A short but expensive part of Edmonton`s new LRT line passed its first hurdle today.
City council`s transportation and public works committee approved spending $45 million to build an 180-metre-long tunnel that will eventually be part of a light-rail transit line from downtown to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology campus.
HOUSING AFFORDABILITYAlberta`s housing market is on watch for possible further negative developments. The average price of a standard twostorey home fell by 4.3% last quarter over the previous quarter. Bungalow prices fell by 7.3%, townhomes were off by 4% and condos fell by 5.3% in their second consecutive quarterly dip. The price of the benchmark two-storey home is still 63% higher than two years ago, and one quarter does not make a trend. However, the year-over-year pace of price gains has gone from about 50% a year ago to only 11% today. Furthermore, the sales to listing ratios in Calgary and Edmonton remain at about 0.4, or about half the peak recorded over the past two years, which points to the risk of further price cooling in a market with more slack.
The arrival of slipping house prices in Alberta may well enhance a growing tendency to make comparisons between Canadian and U.S. household finances. Americans are still modestly richer, but much more heavily leveraged and further indebted with less liquidity. That, in turn, makes them more vulnerable to ongoing credit market turmoil and risks to house prices than Canadians. http://www.rbc.com/economics/market/pdf/house.pdf
EDMONTON - Petro-Canada plans to set up its own steel fabrication plant at the $19-billion Fort Hills oilsands site to combat cost and transportation problems, oilsands vice-president Neil Camarta said Tuesday.
Steel modules for oilsands projects are currently built elsewhere, mostly in Edmonton, and are sized to be transported by road, Camarta told the Cold Climate Construction Conference.
Multi-family housing starts in the Calgary region soared to a record in March while single-detached starts continued their decline compared with a year ago, according to preliminary figures released on Tuesday by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
The level of new multi-family construction in the Calgary census metropolitan area also brought total housing starts to a monthly record.
The U.S. government`s energy forecaster offered a grim view of global oil supply Tuesday, cutting its prediction for supplies from both OPEC and non-OPEC countries for 2008 despite tight fundamentals this summer.
Competing firms in tight race to build Alaska line
CALGARY -- The race to build an Alaska pipeline heated up yesterday after industry giants BP and ConocoPhillips made a bombshell proposal to build their own $30-billion US project.
The two companies announced a joint operating venture dubbed "Denali" to bring some four billion cubic feet per day through Alaska and the Yukon before funelling it into Alberta.
Stettler town councilors want to move forward in upgrading sidewalks in downtown Stettler with a railway décor rather than further derailing the project.
At its regular meeting April 1, Town of Stettler council passed a motion to select a pattern of stained black railtrack with sawcuts at a cost of $215 per square metre and to maintain the 50-50 local improvement program where property owners and the town equally share in the cost of the project fronting business properties.
Water treatment plant progresses with membrane phase
A major component to upgrade the water treatment plant for the Town of Stettler will soon be instated.
At its regular meeting April 1, town council awarded the tender for a membrane unit and equipment to Pall Corporation, recommended by Associated Engineering at a cost of $1,881,526.
Approval is subject to approval from Alberta Transportation, funding and proof testing.
A contentious housing project slated for the banks of the Bow River near Calgary is facing renewed opposition as developers bid to buy water rights to create a private lake.
Sanctuary on the Bow narrowly won approval last September from the Municipal District of Foothills to build a subdivision in a swath of river valley east of the Deerfoot Trail southern extension.
For the second straight year, the province is declaring an emergency in its war against mountain pine beetle.
The move will allow Sustainable Resource Development to tap extra funding to tackle the infestation of Alberta`s pine forests.
Department spokeswoman Joan McCracken said the amount of money needed for the beetle fight will be released in the province`s budget later this month. The government has spent about $138 million since 2006 on the pest problem, which spread to Alberta from British Columbia.
Qualico plans to make a bid for Edmonton to become the home of Canada`s new national portrait gallery.
The company wants to put up a three-floor building for the gallery that would be linked to the 28-storey Epcor Tower going up on the downtown Station Lands, commercial manager Ken Cantor said Wednesday.
Calgary has grown impressively in recent years with condominiums, office buildings and construction cranes filling the expanding downtown skyline.
One hotbed of construction and change is the Victoria Crossing district, just south of the downtown core and including the Stampede Grounds. Where it was once home to derelict houses and criminal activity that scared away prospective home and business owners, a lot has changed in the past decade.
EDMONTON -- The historic Arlington Apartments building can`t be saved, the building`s owner and his architect told city councillors on Wednesday.
"In many ways, we believe that the Arlington building has been destroyed beyond feasible restoration," architect Fraser Brinsmead told council`s executive committee.
EDMONTON -- A Northern Alberta Institute of Technology campaign to raise $50 million for campus improvements has ended up pulling in more than $80 million.
"It`s all about the students, and this means better facilities for them to go to class in, better equipment for them to work on, more scholarships and so on," NAIT president Sam Shaw said Wednesday during the official wrap-up celebration for the Building on Demand initiative.
Edmonton`s corporate small fry sink or swim away from the spotlight
EDMONTON - Think of them as market midgets.
They`re the smallest of the small, the tiniest of the tiny, the no-name micro players in a world fixated on macro issues and mammoth corporations like Nike, Microsoft and ExxonMobil.
They fill obscure market niches. They develop unique software, health care, financial services or industrial products for arcane applications.
