Airdrie Economic Development is out with their 2017 Year In Review and it shows the business market in the city continues to grow.  

Team Leader for Economic Development Kent Rupert starts out the review by saying that in 2017 business licenses in the city were up by 6.6 percent.  "We're pretty happy with that.  There's still a fair amount confidence in the Airdrie economy in the retail side for sure."

The total number of business licenses in Airdrie increased from 3,699 in 2016 to 3,944 last year.  That included the opening of 103 new commercial/industrial and 391 home-based businesses.  The new businesses accounted for 715 new full and part-time jobs for the city.  

Rupert says that Cooper's Promenade, Midtown, Sierra Springs and Kingsview Market have continued to build out to lead the growth in retail.  However, as he points out, not all of the news is good.  "Where we've sort of seen a bit of a decline is on the industrial side.  We're seeing lots of little projects but the bigger projects, I'm not sure if the confidence is quite there yet for the Alberta economy."

According to the report, 303 commercial and industrial permits were issued in 2017 for a total of $28 million, down by nearly half from 2016 when $55 million in permits were issued.  

The value of Airdrie residential construction was up from the previous year, even if the permits issued fell.  2,379 permits were issued in 2017, down from 2,735 in 2016.  The value of those permits increased however to $215 million from $203 million in 2016.  

Rupert says the housing market saw a shift after several years in 2017.   "Yeah, interesting.  We saw over the last number of years out multi-family sort of on a steady increase, last year we saw our single families outpace the multi-families."

Of the 961 housing permits issued, 565 were single detached, 365 were semi-detached and 51 were for low and medium density apartments.

Rupert says, while he hasn't talked to many other cities, the ones he has spoken with are rather envious of Airdrie's growth.  "They certainly have seen a decrease on the industrial side and commercial sort of even holding steady or doing okay.  Airdrie's always been in a bit of a bubble.  You know we just keep plugging along and people really seem to enjoy our business community and want to be part of it and so we're really happy about that."

Rupert believes that 2018 holds many exciting things for Airdrie.  "We have our ten-year economic strategy that's going to be setting the framework of moving forward for the whole city from an economic development perspective to show why do business move here and stay here.  I think with our 12,000-acre plan and our East Points plan which is six quarter sections of non-res coming on board over the next few years, I think we're really positioning Airdrie in a great place over the next five years." 

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