There were no housing starts of any kind in Thompson during the first quarter of 2010, says Calgary-based Richard Corriveau, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) mmanager of market analysis for the Prairie and Territories Region.
Corriveau has worked in CMHC market analysis since 1998 and before becoming manager last June was the regional economist for the Prairie and Territories Region.
Single detached new home starts decreased 86 per cent last year, plummeting to six, CMHC reported in January, from 43 in 2008.
Multiple family housing starts went from eight in 2008 to none last year. Single family starts went from went from 24 in 2007 to 43 in 2008 - an increase of 79.2 per cent - and the highest number of housing starts in at least six years. Multiple family housing starts went from two in 2007 to eight in 2008, all started in the final quarter.
Combined there were 51 housing starts in Thompson in 2008, compared to 26 in 2007, representing a 96.2 per cent increase.
Corriveau says the last single detached housing starts in Thompson were two in the third quarter of last year. "The last quarter to record multiples was the fourth quarter of 2008 when four semis and four row (townhouse) units were started," he added.
The numbers for 2008 year would have be even higher if you used the city's criteria to calculate them. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation does not define the installation of a mobile home as a housing start, but the city does, accounting at times for a significant gap in numbers reported by the organization and the city. There were 32 mobile homes installations in the city during the first 10 months of 2008.
Mobile home installations were not a factor, however, in 2009, says Gary Ceppetelli, the city's director of planning and community development, so the City of Thompson's housing numbers agree for the time being with CMHC's.
Ceppetelli says typically there are no housing starts in Thompson during the first quarter of the year because of cold winter conditions and fourth quarter housing starts can also be in frequent. Most residential construction, he says, in Thompson usually takes place between April 1 and Sept. 30 - the second and third quarters of the year.
However, the most dramatic housing construction improvement in recent years here occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008. Statistics released by CMHC showed that 33 single detached homes were started in the final three months of the year, compared to nine for the same period in 2007. None were started in the fourth quarter of 2009, nor were there any multiple family housing starts. In 2008 there were eight, all started in the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, while the fourth quarter of 2008 was good for local housing starts, it also happened to coincide with the beginning of the so-called Great Recession, which in many parts of the world proved to be the steepest and quickest economic decline since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1937. Within four months, housing starts in Thompson and elsewhere essentially fell off the map.
A June 2008 deal between Winn Can Properties Ltd. and the City of Thompson to build 110 new homes in the Burntwood South subdivision by the end of 2011 collapsed at the end of last year with no new homes being built. The developer has forfeited its $30,000 deposit and all that still remains is to transfer property title back to the City of Thompson.
Winn Can, comprised of a Winnipeg group of investors, working in conjunction with Schickedanz West, a division of Calgary-based Schickedanz Bros. Construction, was to build the first 30 homes by the end of last year.
Ceppetelli says another developer could go probably head fairly quickly, once the property title is transferred back, with single family detached homes on 19 lots on the portion of Smith Crescent west of Campbell Drive, because it is properly zoned.
While it's still uncertain where the first single detached homes will be built this year, Ceppetelli says, a good bet might be Grayling Place, KDS Development Ltd.'s 10-lot re-subdivision of the most westerly portion of Char Bay, off of Westwood Drive. The local principals who own KDS Development Ltd. include some of the most senior members of Smook Brothers (Thompson) Ltd., deputy mayor Harold Smith said last year, specifically Ted Smook and Peter Paulic, vice-president of operations.
The city had listed the 2.82-acre parcel in its vacant land inventory and was asking about $551,250 for it at $6.00/square foot early in 2009.
Ceppetelli says permafrost was initially considered a problem, which is one of the reasons the land had remained vacant for years, but after re-drilling a few years ago it was determined the most westerly portion of Char Bay was suitable to develop.
Ceppetelli estimates about half - five of 10 lots - have been sold for Grayling Place.
There is also the possibility of single-detached homes being built here and there on vacant in-fill lots, as Dayton Barenz, a certified general accountant who owns commercially-zoned property on Nelson Road, and other owners have done elsewhere with individual residential lots in places like Stanford Bay and Queen's Bay, Ceppetelli says.
Dennis Fenske's DDAK Developments Inc., which built an eight-unit apartment building last year on Centennial Drive near Thompson Drive South and Maple Street, and received the green light from the city in February to cut the size of a second planned building at the location in half to four units from eight, is also expected to go ahead this year, Ceppetelli says, although whether the new building will be apartments or condominiums in the scaled-down project is still uncertain, he says, but the original plan was to make them condominiums. In a Feb. 1 report to city council, Ceppetelli wrote: "He (Fenske) is exploring the possibility of subdividing the land to create individual titles to offer the units for sale."
Fenske appeared at the development review committee Jan. 22 to ask for the modification in size from a proposed two-storey eight-plex to a one-storey four-plex. The footprint for the building will remain about the same, Ceppetelli says.
The city's development agreement with Fenske for the property dates back almost two years to March 25, 2008. The land was transferred to DDAK Developments Inc. on Aug. 12, 2008.
On April 20, 2009, the city granted an extension of time until this September to substantially complete the second building, then proposed as an eight-plex, on the most easterly lot.
After eight months of trying, Corayana Enterprises Ltd. abandoned its plan to convert up to 16 rental apartments in a building at Riverside Court into condominiums. A one-bedroom Riverside Court condo was to start at $139,900.
Corayana has 133 yellow-clad apartments, formerly known as the Corayana apartments on Copper and Nickel roads, in seven buildings. One of the buildings was to be renovated and designated for condo ownership.
A Southern Ontario businessman, Arkadi Neiman, heads the investors committee for Corayana Enterprises Ltd. Corayana bought the apartments just over a year ago. Two years ago, Sasha Bimman of Bimman Real Estate Services Inc. in Toronto, came to Thompson with several other investors looking for property to buy for high-end apartment rentals and to test-market condos. Bimman was the public face of Corayana Enterprises Ltd. until last October when Neiman became the point man. Bimman remains associated as an investor.
"We are officially halting all marketing of our condos. We were unable to obtain a critical mass of buyers necessary to complete a full building as condos," Melanie Bekevich, the onsite manager at Riverside Court, said March 30. "We own seven buildings and we can't put rentals and condos on the same title," Bekevich noted last December when the plan was still to convert some units to condos. "So we first have to subdivide the buildings, since some are now going to be executive rentals."
Corayana has now shifted their focus to corporate and individual leases, she said.
Princeton Towers, extensively renovated in 2007 by Sheiner Group, a Montréal-based real estate investment firm specializing in the acquisition and development of commercial, residential and retirement lifestyle communities in Canada and the U.S. controlled by Lloyd Sheiner, and Ottawa businessman Harold Silver's Silver Management Group Limited, a residential and commercial property management company with numerous properties, mostly in Ottawa and Sault-Ste. Marie, Ont., was sold to Winnipeg lawyer Ken Carroll and Winnipeg realtor Russ Knight's Polar Bear Properties Ltd. on March 30, 2009 for $14.75 million.
Princeton Towers is trying to convert many of its 275 rental apartments to condo ownership. To date it has sold at least 19 condominiums - almost double the 10 condominiums it had sold by Christmas last year. It can take several weeks from the time of registration until Manitoba Local Government Assessment Services here receives a land title from the Portage Land Titles Office in Portage la Prairie, so it is possible more than 19 have been sold.
With two nine-storey buildings on Princeton Drive, comprising the North Tower and South Tower, which opened for occupancy in September 1971, sporting an indoor pool and sauna and originally built to house executives who wanted the best amenities and the best views of Thompson from their balconies, attached to every unit, Princeton Towers has been designated for use as condominiums since 1991, says Ceppetelli, making it unique among Thompson properties.
