Article New Construction Starts Despite Market Conditions

While construction is one of Canada’s largest industrial sectors (accounting for nearly 8% of the GDP and employing approximately 1.47 million people), the Canadian construction market is currently grappling with some very serious challenges. A recent survey conducted by Constructive Solutions, a division of The Answer Company, found that all of the issues plaguing Canadian construction firms are centred around rising costs and human resources. Supply chain disruptions have led to rising material costs and higher construction values. Worker shortages, subcontractor availability, and increasing labour costs have caused severe constraints in the market. These challenges—and more—continue to impact premium costs for clients.

The Wales team is preparing for construction at the Choice Industrial Centre site in Campbell Heights, BC.

Locally, land development in the Greater Vancouver region has become increasingly complex due to land shortages, soaring land values, site constraints, high material costs, lengthy and inconsistent rezoning processes, plus other variable factors.

Despite market constraints and global economic conditions, Wales McLelland has been awarded ten new industrial and commercial projects, further demonstrating our leadership in the commercial and industrial sectors. WM’s recent success speaks to the resiliency of our market and the trust our clients have in us, even in these uncertain times.

Sunmark Business Centre Phase 1 is Campbell Heights’ newest industrial centre encompassing a lot size of 331,528 SF with a building footprint of 178,591 SF.

These projects represent a diverse cross-section of our overall industrial and commercial market, ranging from six new and four repeat clients, smaller regional markets in BC and Alberta, build to suits, spec lease and for-sale strata, tenant improvements, stacked industrial, food processing, as well as large pension funds and REITs to family offices with undeveloped land holdings. This amounts to over a million SF, starting this quarter.

In a challenging and dynamic construction environment, our specialization in the commercial and industrial sectors continues to breed trust and confidence with new and existing clients. Transparency, collaboration, and our ability to manage the process from inception to completion has allowed us to realize success for our clients. We would also like to acknowledge all of our consultants and trade partners, but especially our talented team; in every corner of our organisation, we have professionals that are dedicated to advancing our clients’ business and committed to delivering excellence, time and time again.

Summit Industrial Warehouses will be a new innovative workspace located in the heart of Squamish’s Business Park, in British Columbia.

We are excited with the momentum our team has generated in securing project awards in recent months and look forward to collaborating with these new and returning clients to build and develop critical infrastructure across the province.

Wales McLelland has been awarded both the pre-construction services and construction management contract for General Fusion on this Tenant Improvement project. Construction is well underway including a large retrofit of General Fusion’s 56,596 SF Main Building & 10,893 SF Annex Building.

Watch: Site Preparation at Choice Industrial Centre



If you have a land or building development project that you’re looking to start, contact our team to see how Wales McLelland can help.