SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Of the 30 residential lots available in the Grace Lake Waterside subdivision by the City of Yellowknife in the Engle business district, almost all are now sold.

Damiaan Watson, front, has been framing for Brian Legge, back, of Legge Carpentry for five months now. Here, he's putting up a wall on a new home they're building in the Grace Lake subdivision west of Kam Lake. There are only two lots left of the original 30-parcel City of Yellowknife land sale. - Walter Strong/NNSL photo

At the start of 2013, nine of the original lots were still available. As of the start of this year, the city listed only two lots as still available.

Brian Legge, owner of Yellowknife's Legge Carpentry is bullish on new home development in the city. Including the house he's building now for a client in Grace Lake, this will be the fourth house his crew has completed in the past year - with three of them in Grace Lake.

"When the the city opens up development on the south side, I'm going to buy several lots," he said.

Showing confidence in Yellowknife's prospects, he'll purchase those lots on spec, meaning he won't have a committed home buyer on hand before developing the properties.

Legge considered buying lots to develop in the Engle offering, but the restriction on occupancy was too much of a deterrent.

"I would have bought a lot out there if you were allowed to build a residence with it (the commercial development)," Legge said.

"A lot of people want or need to be able to live where their business is."

Legge moved to Yellowknife from Newfoundland 23 years ago started Legge Carpentry 11 years ago. He's been busy ever since.

"There's always a lot of construction," Legge said. "We're always busy. My season is already full. I've had to turn away new homes for this year."

Legge's crew of five carpenters has expanded to seven this summer after he hired two young workers straight out of high school.

Although Legge said it can be tough to find reliable workers in the first place, employee retention hasn't been hard for Legge, even in the face of huge pay cheques available in industrial construction or in the mines across the NWT.

Part of Legge's success with keeping long term employees - two have been with him for five years -could be the investment he puts back into his workers' careers.

"All my guys are (registered) apprentices," Legge said. "One turned journeyman this year, and another will be journeyman next year."

He's already encouraged the two new hires he's made for this summer to register for apprenticeships.

"It's great to have trade," Legge said. "In the long run, they have something to carry on with in their lives, even if they don't stay with me."

"It's a good trade to have. There's always something that needs to be built."

Legge also doesn't lay anyone off.

"We work year-round," he said. "We started the last one last fall we just finished this spring. A winter build is much more difficult and slow-going, but we don't stop."

As for who is buying the lots, in Legge's experience, it's people already in Yellowknife looking for a better location.

"I think it's people moving around in Yellowknife," Legge said. "It's not new people to town, it's people looking for a nicer location."

Legge is eager to see the city's plans to develop the south side of Grace Lake fall into place.

"I love construction in Yellowknife," he said. "I love the challenge. I'm not a fan of the cold, but I like the challenge."

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