Swift Current boasts quick growth, speedy building pace and fast approvals
WI STAFF
Western Investor
One telling fact underlines the fast-paced growth of Swift Current: building-permit values in the past six years are more than the total of the previous 25 years combined.
"Last year we had the highest value for permits issued in our history at $85 million," said Marty Salberg, Swift Current's director of business development, noting that 2011 held the previous record and 2013 is on track for another busy construction pace.
The main service and shopping centre for southwest Saskatchewan, Swift Current relies on agriculture, manufacturing and - more recently - the oil industry, which together forge a solid economy, Salberg explained.
The city's population rose from 16,500 in 2009 to 17,365 in 2012, and includes more than 500 immigrants choosing the city as a location to live and work. Planners in Saskatchewan's sixth-largest city see this as only the start: within the next seven years, the population is expected to top 20,000.
"We have a diversified economy," Salberg said. "We are attracting a lot of new people."
Agriculture has long been Swift Current's trump card. Cattle and wheat are supreme in the fertile farmlands that surround the city, but other livestock, cereal grains, pulse crops and oil grains are helping to harvest record-breaking farm incomes.
Manufacturing
The city has also been able to attract various large-scale businesses. Swift Current is home to Batco Manufacturing, the largest belt-conveyer manufacturer for grain handling products in North America, which this year expanded its plant three-fold to 114,000 square feet; farm-machinery maker and exporter REM Enterprises Inc.; and Urban Forest Recyclers, supplying half of North America's egg-tray market.
Services upgraded
Yet it is the oil industry - linked to the massive Bakken oilfields south of the city - that have helped launched Swift Current into a Saskatchewan powerhouse. As exploration and production increase, the city has become the go-to centre for oil services, from consultants and engineers to parts supplies.
The dramatic growth - and potential - in Swift Current is reflected on where the city is spending its money. Two new elementary schools are under construction directly adjacent to the Cypress Regional Hospital. Plans continue for the addition of a new 225-room long-term care facility and city facilities such as an aquatics leisure centre, fieldhouse and library and art gallery.
"In the past few years the city has invested in a new state-of-the-art hospital, wastewater treatment plant, hockey and curling facility, expansion to the water-treatment plant and more. Total investment in this infrastructure exceeds $80 million," Salberg said. As well, more than 600 homes have been built in the past six years.
All of this requires land, and the city has moved aggressively to get it. In 2011 and again this year, the city annexed a total of eight quarter sections - approximately 1,280 acres - from the neighbouring Rural Municipality of Swift Current.
This land will help Swift Current meet demand for industrial property. The city currently offers fully served industrial land in three city-owned sites, at around $90,000 per acre, but current industrial parks are close to capacity.
As a major retail hub in southern Saskatchewan, Swift Current has most of the big-box stores, including recently expanded Walmart and Canadian Tire, and both the city's shopping centres have been renovated.
Housing
According to city assessments, the average value of a residential property in Swift Current has increased about 47 per cent since 2007 - and the typical apartment building price doubled - but you can still find older detached houses in the city for under $200,000. A more typical price, however, is the $400,000-and-up range for newer houses, according to listings from Re/Max of Swift Current.
Renting is affordable in Swift Current, which currently has the highest apartment-vacancy rate and the lowest average rent in the province, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC). The vacancy rate jumped from 2.8 per cent last year to 8.7 per cent this spring, while the average two- bedroom apartment rents for $751, compared with a provincewide average of $899.
CMHC surmises that the increase in vacancies is due to a high number of rental properties built over the past two years, along with an impact from lower natural gas prices, which reduced employment activity.u
Swift Current, SK quick facts
- Population 17,400
- Average house price $225,000
- Industrial, serviced acre $90,000
- Major employers Agriculture, manufacturing, oil and gas industry
From the Western Investor, August 2013
