By TERRY PUGH
With four months still to go in the calendar year, the total value of construction in the City of Martensville has already set a new annual record.
According to the city’s planning department, the total value of building permits issued between the beginning of January and the end of August, 2025, is $64.9 million.
That’s higher than the city’s previous annual record of $63.23 million in building permit values, set in 2015. It’s also more than three times higher than the $20.74 million in total construction value over the 12 months of 2024.
“It is a significant jump in the total value of building permits,” said Martensville Director of Planning Bonnie Gorelitza. “It’s primarily due to a few very large projects.”
Those projects include an 87-unit apartment building being built at 225 Main Street valued at $19 million; and a 107-unit, two-building apartment complex (one building has 55 units and the other has 52 units) valued at $24.1 million currently under construction on 16th Avenue North.
Both of these apartment complexes are aimed at the rental market, a vital component in the city’s overall housing mix, according to Gorelitza.
“There is a strong demand regionally for various forms of housing, and these two projects definitely meet a need in our community,” she said. “Whether people are retiring or young people are looking for places to move to when they leave home, or people in the service industry working in businesses that have been attracted to Martensville over the past several years. There are lots of potential clients for rental units, and both these companies have been wonderful to work with. They each bring their own unique styles to what they are providing. Each project offers different amenities.”
Another major project is a $2.4 million gas bar and restaurant to be built in the 900 block of Centennial Drive North.
Other building permits valued at over a million dollars each include:
* a $2.8 million dental office building on Mirond Road in the Lake Vista area;
* a $1.04 million office building on Rutten Court;
* three relocatable classrooms for the schools in the Lake Vista neighbourhood valued at $1.18 million; and
* a $1.5 million trades construction building on 8th Street South.
An eight-unit multi-family residential complex on Besnard Drive valued at $950,000 is also among the large construction projects underway.
Overall, multi-unit dwellings account for the bulk of construction. Taking all the apartment complexes into account, there are collectively 215 units currently in the works.
In contrast, the city has issued building permits for just 14 new single-family homes so far in 2025.
That’s a reflection of the changing marketplace, said Gorelitza.
“Regionally, there’s a push for more affordable housing and rental units are an important part of that equation,” she said.
Gorelitza said while the jump in construction values may appear to be sudden, most of the projects have been in the works for a while.
“The city has been doing a lot of background planning and taking steps to get ready for growth to occur,” she said. “There have been economic development and tax incentive measures put in place to encourage investment on commercial and industrial projects.”
She noted that the higher value of construction this year also reflects increased costs for developers.
Over the last several years, inflation and supply-chain issues have driven prices for materials and labour higher.
Gorelitza said the city is expecting to see additional construction projects come to fruition in the near future.