Prince George, B.C.- Over the past  few months,  developers have  been vocal  with their praise for the  Development and Planning  Department at  Prince George City Hall,  saying it is clear Prince George is open for business.  The number of projects underway would underscore  those comments.The Marriott hotel,  additions to the Downtown energy system,  development  of the Inland Kenworth site on 97 south,   and of course the  Riverbend Seniors  complex are some of the projects sparking activity in the City.

Building permits are up.  Year to date  numbers show permits for new single family dwellings  as of the end of June (78)  were about  four times what they were last year (18) and the year before (22) for the same six month period.

When you look at permits for  all categories for the same time period, there have been  218 permits issued  compared to  80  for the first six months of last year, and 121 in the same period in 2014.

What’s driving the  action?   Mayor Lyn Hall says  it may be partly  a result of a positive Conference Board of Canada  report “When they  came out with their report showing Prince George as the top economic community   based on comparables throughout  the country, I think people are realizing that we are  truly  a hub city, we are truly  the Northern capital, and we’re a great centre to access the northeast and the northwest of the province   where at some point, there could be a tremendous  amount of work on LNG  and of course, Site C, mining. I think people have just taken notice.”

Manager of Economic Development for the City, Melissa Barcellos says the activity doesn’t stop  with  new  construction,  as vacancy rates in the downtown   have been declining over the past few years  and  for the first time in a long time,  there is no vacancy  on 4th Avenue.     The Move Up Prince George campaign,  designed to  bring awareness of the  advantages of living and working in P.G.,  is paying off  says Barcellos  including media interest from other markets such as a recent  article  about Prince George  in the Globe and Mail  and  a feature on a Vancouver  radio station .

There have been three calls this week alone from people looking to  relocate to P.G.  says Barcellos “The fact that they are actually reaching out to us and making that phone  call shows us they are serious.  I can only imagine how many people are thinking about it but not making the call.”

She says  companies  posting job listings report 14% of the hires they have made  have come  from out of town.

The Move Up Prince George website  itself  has been recognized as stellar   “It has been  given a gold  award  from the International Economic Development Council  in the  category of Special Purpose Website”.   She says   that in less than two years since that website was launched,  there have been nearly 135 thousand unique  visitors, and  they are coming from the target markets of Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey.  Most who visit the site are between the ages of 25 and 44,  “Which is exactly our target audience” says Barcellos. While there is also a great deal of traffic to the site from Prince George she says that’s a good thing too “It was designed to change the perceptions of Prince George and make them more accurate and more recently we are  trying to do more locally to contribute to the community spirit that we’re seeing in town and the positivity locally.”

Mayor Hall says Prince  George has  the complete package, “Housing is affordable,   there  are opportunities for employment, for opening up a business here,  there are educational opportunities for children  it has the entire package right here.”   He says he is  excited about seeing what the latest census will show for population numbers in Prince George “I am pretty excited and will  have to wait a bit longer to see what Stats Canada will  come up with, but I think we will ( see population growth)   I don’t even want to hazard a guess as to what that number might be,  but I think we will see some growth.”