Kamloops Construction Hit $162.5 Million in 2011
This article was written by Jeremy Deutsch of Kamloops This Week on January 9th, 2012.
Despite fears of a double-dip recession and lingering issues with the harmonized sales tax, 2011 turned out to be a pretty good year for construction in the Tournament Capital.
The city handed out $162.5-million in building permits in 2011, which ended up to $40 million more than projected.
David Trawin, the city’s director of development and engineering services, said the year was saved by a strong showing in commercial and industrial development.
The city issued $57-million in commercial/industrial permits in 2011, including another $2.8 million in December, besting the previous year by $7 million.
Conversely, residential construction dropped significantly in 2011.
The city handed out $96-million in permits last year, down from $129 million in 2010.
As for 2012, Trawin is offering a conservative estimate — predicting the city will hit between $130 million and $150 million in permit value.
“I’m considering next year to be an average year for Kamloops,” he said.
However, there are some big projects expected to land on the department’s desk, including permits for a Telus data centre, an Interior Health Authority development in North Kamloops and a new Marriott hotel in Aberdeen, at the site of the former Home Hardware store at Pacific Way and Rogers Way.
Trawin also expects the commercial side of construction to remain strong in 2012.
“Those are the types of building permits that bring jobs into the community,” he said, adding the residential portion will eventually follow and rebound.
Though all the numbers might not mean much to the average Kamloopsian, Trawin noted the engineering department uses the statistics to budget and plan for the year ahead.
A full report on construction activity at city hall in 2011 is expected to be in front of council early this year.
The city has only topped $200 million in permits once — in 2008.
In that year, the city doled out $207 million worth of permits, which was a record.
In a 12-month period between 2009 and 2010, the city handed out $222.5-million in permits for 883 dwelling units.
That proved to be a record.
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Barriere is located 45 minutes or 66 kilometers north of the city of Kamloops along the Yellowhead Highway #5. Barriere officially became a municipality on December 4th, 2007 and has it’s own city centre that has everything you would need. The population of Barriere is approximately 3,000. The main industry in Barriere is forestry but tourism has increased allowing for another industry to emerge. The Thompson Valley Rodeo is one of the events in Barriere that draws quite a crowd. Barriere has a number of lakes in the area to enjoy many that feature white sand beaches.
Barriere has a range of properties such as mobile homes in a park, a few townhouses and duplex homes, homes on smaller residential lots, small to large acreages and recreational lakefront properties.
Most of the smaller residential lots are also found close to Barriere city centre. The newest development is found near the corner of Barriere Town Road (Northern access) and the Yellowhead Highway #5. This is where you will find the newest homes as well as serviced lots ready for new homes. Other roads such as Amnesty Road, McLean Road, Gibbs Road, Oriole Way, Deejay Road, Barkley Road, Mountain Road, Dunsmuir Road and Bartlett Road house residential properties that are under one acre in size.
There are a number of these properties found along the Yellowhead Highway but they can also be found on Barriere Lakes Road, Agate Bay Road and Dunn Lake Road to name a few. Alfalfa is the primary crop grown on farms and many properties house cattle and other livestock. Many acreages are located close to Barriere city centre allowing owners to have access to the essentials.
East and North Barriere Lakes. East Barriere Lake houses more recreational property development than North Barriere. There are a variety of properties on both lakes from resort type strata developments to more private larger lake front lots. Both lakes have public boat launches and white sand beaches. Click the following links for more information about 
There are numerous outdoors activities that can be enjoyed in Barriere. This regions is known as an outdoors paradise year round. Residents and visitors in the winter enjoy world class snowmobiling, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, ice fishing, skating (on frozen lakes) and any other winter activities you can think of. Sun Peaks ski resort, a year round resort is a 45 minute drive from Barriere adding more recreational activities to the already long list.