Construction industry booming.

The construction climate in Sudbury is looking brighter today than it has in the last few years, but industry players are saying there is still room for improvement.

The new housing market is stronger this year than in recent years, says J.P. Max, president of the Sudbury and District Home Builders' Association and president of J.P. Max Construction.

Max speculates the new housing market is stronger due to improved employment opportunities in the Sudbury area.

"(J.P Max Construction) is working more for sure this past year (than in previous years)," Max says.

The firm has five new homes currently under construction and could have five to 10 houses completed this year, he adds.

Although the current climate is good, things could be better. New home construction and renovation work is likely the best it has been in five years, Max says, but the construction industry in Sudbury, "is coming off several bad years, so there is still room for improvement.

"Most sub-trades are fairly busy," Max says. "We're all scrambling to get this stuff up while the summer's here. We haven't had that problem for the past few years."

Chantal Benoit, Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. market analyst for Sudbury, says single-family home construction in the area is experiencing slight growth over last year, and she believes it will probably continue into 2002.

According to Ontario Home Builders' Association statistics, each single family dwelling erected creates the equivalent of 2.8 full-time jobs for a year.

To date, there have been 100 housing starts in 2001, compared to 73 for same period last year. Benoit says it would appear that Sudbury is a little stronger than the rest of northeastern Ontario, but it is not a significant amount.

In addition to housing starts in the city being up 37 per cent over last year, several large commercial projects are either currently underway or slated to begin construction within the next year.

Construction is continuing on Phase 1, the south tower, of the Sudbury Regional Hospital. However, the hospital board has made the decision to slow down the work because it was not willing to proceed without Ministry of Health approval for the new co-estimate, says Sudbury Regional Hospital corporate director of communications Viviane Lapointe.

Although the cost of the hospital's construction was initially estimated at $143 million, escalating costs have pushed the most recent estimate for the new hospital to $209 million.

The ministry is providing 70 per cent of the funding for the project, and the board is still waiting for ministry approval, she adds.

She cites increased charges for materials and labour, and a lack of competition as factors in the increase of the construction costs.

Lapointe adds that cost savings are being found in materials changes, mainly to the exterior, but that the scope of the project remains the same.

Completion of Phase 1 is currently slated for March 2002, says Lapointe. Two tenders have been awarded and completed for excavation and pre-cast removal. With that work done, construction could proceed "fairly quickly" once a decision comes from the ministry, she says. Construction on of Phase 2 was scheduled to begin this past spring.

Sudbury Regional Hospital board of directors chair Tom Querney notes the situation is not unique to Sudbury.

"For all of these hospital restructuring projects, the initial price tag was 2.1 billion. Now it's 7.1 billion. We (the board) think our hospital cost on a per square-foot basis is in line with projects in the rest of the province."

The hospital board is submitting construction estimates and timelines, Querney says, and has hired an independent quantity surveyor, Hellyer and Associates.

The firm has provided an independent estimate of costs for completing the hospital project, which is where the $209-million figure comes from, says Lapointe. She adds that estimate is based on market conditions projected over the course of the project.

The hospital board chose a construction-management model, rather than the fixed-price - lump sum - approach more typical to this type of construction, because it allowed a faster start to the project, and because "the construction management model allowed more local contractors to bid on the work," Querney says. He adds, "127 companies have done work on site; of those, 113 were local."

Lapointe says "the board is now exploring the feasibility of lump-sum" management. They have asked Hellyer to provide an independent cost estimate for the completion of Phase 2 as a fixed-price construction project.

Elsewhere in Sudbury, expansion of Cambrian College continues with the recent completion of Phase 1 of the $25.58-million SuperBuild project. The project in its entirety will increase learning space at the college by 121,000 square feet, with the addition of labs, classroom space and a multimedia facility.

Phase 1, a 27,000-square-foot addition to the college, provides space for learning labs with a focus on health care, graphic design and computer technology.

Construction of the 121,000-square-foot SuperBuild initiative began in June 2000 and is slated for completion by 2002.

Site work for the construction of Dynamic Earth, a $12.8-million capital project which will feature a tourist attraction with science galleries, object theatres and underground tours, is also underway with tendering expected to take place over the next few weeks.

Tribury Construction, a commercial/insitutional builder, is preparing to break ground in early September to build a long-term care facility in Val Caron within the City of Greater Sudbury. The facility, valued at about $8 million, will house 128 beds in four home units of 32 residents each and is slated to be ready for occupancy by fall 2002.