Windsor permit values drop 13 percent in May
Building permit activity in Windsor dipped slightly in May.
Permit values reached just over $28.1 million for the month, which represented a drop of about $4 million, or 13 percent, from April’s total. This was despite the fact that construction was suspended by provincial order on all but the most essential projects for half of the month.
In total, the city issued 272 permits for construction work—nearly double the 154 issued for works in April. Most of May’s permits (241) were issued for work in the residential sector. Permit values there exceeded $23.5 million. Seventeen permits worth a combined total of $2.8 million were issued for commercial-sector work, eight (worth a combined $924,000) were issued for industrial work, and six (worth a combined $733,000) were issued for government and institutional projects.
The largest permit issued by the city in May was worth $1.2 million—for construction of a Home Outfitters retail store on Walker Road near the Windsor International Airport. The next-largest permit for non-residential work was worth $600,000—for construction of a restaurant on Tecumseh Road East.
Compared with May 2019, permit values were up slightly—by about $800,000, or 3 percent. The total value of building permits issued for the year to date is now just over $145.4 million. Over the same period a year ago, the combined total of building permits was worth $146.6 million.
Although the value of residential construction at $87.7 million for the year to date is significantly head of the $67.6 million posted for the first five months of last year, the total value of permits issued in the commercial (down $20.6 million) and industrial (down $4 million) sectors more than offset those gains. A gain of approximately $3 million in the government and institutional sectors helped to keep 2020’s total nearly on par with 2019’s.