Jess McDiarmid
Northern News Services
Published Friday, January 11, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - A developer building 18 condominium units on the former Bartam Trailer Court site expects to start work as early as February, following development approval granted by the city in December.

Real estate developer Mike Mrdjenovich said putting in pilings on the development will start in February on the wedge of land between School Draw and Franklin Avenues.

"They're going to be finished by the end of this year," said Mrdjenovich of Nova Builders.

The "high-end" condominiums will be roughly more than 850 square metres with three bedrooms per unit.

The plan is slightly different than one Nova Builders proposed to the city in November 2005, which was for a 16-unit duplex complex on the site. But it's nearly the same thing, said Mrdjenovich.

"We made it a little bigger and more attractive," said the developer, who expects to bring in around $600,000 per unit.

The expected start to building comes nearly a decade after Nova Builder's first proposal for the site, a 2000 bid to build a 30-unit complex for seniors and single adults that was shut down by widespread public resistance.

There was also talk of converting the site into a boat launch and marina after the city forced 17 trailer owners off the land in 1993, but that plan was abandoned when the city took over the Giant Mine boat launch in 1999.

The additional housing is coming as rent prices in Yellowknife are expected to rise due to falling vacancy rates, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

In its fall rental market survey, vacancy rates in Yellowknife shrunk to 1.2 per cent last year from 3.3 per cent in 2006. The corporation expected the decrease would lead to rental rate increases and new construction.