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CALGARY/AM770CHQR - Heavy spending on office buildings in Alberta and Ontario pushed investment in non-residential building construction to another record high between July and September.
Investment hit $8.9 billion, up 1.9 percent from the second quarter, the 14th straight quarterly increase.
Investment reached record highs in two of three components - commercial and institutional, where investors pumped $5.1 billion into commercial projects, up four percent from the second quarter, and investment edged up 0.7 per cent to $2.4 billion in the institutional component.
Spending in the industrial component declined 3.5 percent to $1.4 billion.
Provincially, the biggest third-quarter dollar increase by far occurred Alberta, where investment in non-residential building construction rose seven per cent to $1.7 billion, a ninth straight quarterly gain; British Columbia was a distant second, increasing investment 2.6 percent to $1.3 billion.
OTTAWA (CP) - Heavy spending on office buildings in Alberta and Ontario pushed investment in non-residential building construction to another record high between July and September. Investment hit $8.9 billion, up 1.9 per cent from the second quarter, the 14th straight quarterly increase. Investment reached record highs in two of three components - commercial and institutional, where investors pumped $5.1 billion into commercial projects, up four per cent from the second quarter, and investment edged up 0.7 per cent to $2.4 billion in the institutional component. Spending in the industrial component declined 3.5 per cent to $1.4 billion. Provincially, the biggest third-quarter dollar increase by far occurred Alberta, where investment in non-residential building construction rose seven per cent to $1.7 billion, a ninth straight quarterly gain; British Columbia was a distant second, increasing investment 2.6 per cent to $1.3 billion.
Or, a rising star in the booming construction sector caught in the cross-hairs of an arch rival and on criminal charges related to bid-rigging? Industry watchers say the story contains the two elements. But the man under scrutiny, contractor Hafeez Karamath, insists that he has received no special favours from the State-run Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT), or anybody else for that matter, and that rumours swirling about his so-called political and business connections are just that. Karamath, who is before the courts on criminal charges related to the US$150 million desalination water plant at Point Lisas, is hanging tough, ignoring his critics and pushing full speed ahead to catch up on government-funded projects that have fallen behind schedule and over-budget-among them, the Manning administration's much-trumpeted Brian Lara Cricket Stadium in Torouba.
In the clutches of drug and alcohol addiction, Upshaw watched as her marriage crumbled and she lost custody of her two children. "All I wanted to do was die, not knowing where to go or where to turn," she recalled. Upshaw decided to give rehab another try, and her pastor recommended Promise of Hope, a faith-based facility on the outskirts of Dudley, a small farming town in Laurens County, 40 miles east of Macon. Upshaw's been clean since December 2004, though she admits "it's tough every day." And she has her family back. "My husband and I remarried, mainly because of what I learned here and he learned here." Since it opened in 1999, Promise of Hope has served more than 250 women like Upshaw. It boasts a success rate of 68 percent, compared to the national average of about 35 percent, said Denise Dobbins, the founder and executive director.
TO GET into the Calvi Ranch, a rambling spread in the corrugated hills above Bodega Bay in southern Sonoma County, you have to drive past a thicket of signs with slogans saying "No Quarry on the Coast" and "Save Bay Hill Road" and "Corporate Profit or Nature Preservation?" The placards are part of a grassroots campaign to prevent a Marin County mining, dredging and marine construction company from buying this rugged rangeland for an open pit rock quarry similar to its controversial San Rafael Rock Quarry. Environmentalists fear the Dutra Group - the company that has rankled neighbors who complain about its noisy, dusty quarry operation along Point San Pedro Road - has long-term plans for the Calvi property, one of the last unprotected ranches on the Sonoma coast. They argue that a rock quarry would have dire environmental consequences from dynamiting and digging into the fragile coastal landscape.
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