Brantford building permits headed for record year

- Oct 23, 2020

With three quarters of the year already on the books, it seems a certainty that construction activity in Brantford will reach its highest-ever level.

Reports released by the City of Brantford show $41.3 million worth of permits issued in September. That represented a jump of nearly 15 percent from September of last year, and an increase of a factor of five from the $8 million worth of permits issued in August 2020.

“It was another great month for us,” chief building official Andy McMahon told the Brantford Expositor.

With more than $206 million worth of permits issued for the year to date, permit volumes are more than 22 percent above the $168.8 million recorded in the first nine months of last year. They have already surpassed the $199.3 million in permits issued in all of 2019, and are just $5 million away from the record volume set in 2005.

Construction demand for the month was strongest in the multiple residential sector. Four permits there combined for $28.5 million worth of activity. Twenty permits for new single-detached homes reached a total of nearly $6.5 million.

Activity in the non-residential sector reached nearly $2.8 million for the month. Driving the sector was the institutional component, where permit values reached nearly $1.5 million. Permits in the commercial sector reached $832,000 while institutional & government permits reached $450,000. That combined figure was only a slight decline from the $3 million worth of non-residential permits issued in August 2020.

Key permits issued for the month include:

$938,000 for a warehouse alteration on Middleton Street
$450,000 for a fast-food restaurant on Henry Street
$259,000 for building alteration at 360 Conklin Road
$245,000 for alterations to a building on Market Street for Wilfrid Laurier University