Building Magazine

According to the latest economic update by the Ontario Construction Secretariat (OCS), Ontario's investment in industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) building construction reached $2.85 billion in April 2026. Overall investment was slightly lower than both March 2026 and April 2025. Commercial construction continued to account for the largest share of spending, while industrial and institutional investment increased from the previous month.

The tech behemoth behind Facebook and Instagram says it plans to make Alberta home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and its largest outside the United States. Meta announced on July 8 that the $13-billion-plus project is to be built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland region north of Edmonton.

Thousands of federal public servants started a new work schedule on July 6 that will see them on-site in the office four days a week, though a lack of office space is delaying the return for some departments. The Treasury Board announced the change to remote work rules in February. Executive public servants returned to the office full-time in May.

Explore most school districts in Ontario and you'll find aging buildings, crowded classrooms, and antiquated HVAC systems working overtime. But you won't find a clear framework guiding how schools should sound. Acoustics rarely surface in debates about school infrastructure, yet they shape almost everything that happens in a classroom. When students can't hear clearly, they struggle and fall behind. When teachers spend years raising their voices over background noise, they burn out faster.

The economy sprung back to life in April with solid enough growth to dismiss the spectres of a recession, according to economists weighing in on the latest data on June 30. Statistics Canada said real gross domestic product rose 0.5 per cent in April, the fastest monthly growth rate for the economy since July 2025. The result topped StatCan's initial estimate for 0.4 per cent growth in the month.

Real estate activity in Calgary took a dip in June compared with a year earlier as prices also fell. The Calgary Real Estate Board says 2,197 homes changed hands last month, down 3.8 per cent from June 2025, as the residential benchmark price fell 2.1 per cent to $572,500.

Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada says her administration is setting aside some money to cover the cost of interest-free loans for tenants who are struggling to pay their rent. The move comes a few days before July 1, when many renters move and start new leases. The mayor says the funds will allow some 150 households to access up to $5,000 in loans repayable over five years. The city was unable to say exactly how much the program would cost taxpayers.

The Metro Vancouver city of Surrey has announced it is going ahead with the development of a 10,000-seat arena that will become the new home of the Western Hockey League's Vancouver Giants when it's complete. The city and the Surrey City Development Corp. say they have agreed in principle to develop the arena on a two-hectare parcel of land near city hall, to be completed by 2030. The cost of the arena is estimated at $360 million, with funding already allocated in Surrey's 2026 budget.

Development of Canada's first offshore wind farms took a significant step forward on June 26 when Nova Scotia's offshore energy regulator released the names of companies qualified to bid on seabed licences. The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator identified five companies and two groups of companies that won approval after taking part in a review process between October 2025 and January of this year.

A government plan to buy empty condominiums and turn them into affordable housing in British Columbia might be more about stabilizing the financial sector than housing, an urban planning expert says. Some have criticized the federal and B.C. government's plan to convert unsold condos in a plan that Prime Minister Mark Carney said would use "innovative financial tools" as the most efficient ways to increase housing supply.