OBJ staff

After two-plus years of a pandemic and a disruptive trucker convoy, how are Ottawa’s business leaders feeling about the future? 

Sector is “gaining momentum” thanks to a booming industrial market and a retail industry that’s roared back to life in recent months as pandemic restrictions have lifted, new report says.

Merchants that lost income due to the demonstrations against vaccine mandates earlier this year can apply for up to $10,000 in funding.

Multi-unit starts on the Quebec side of the river dropped from 547 in April 2021 to just 163 last month, a decline of 70 per cent.

Ottawa firm said its funds from operations rose nearly 18 per cent compared with the first quarter of 2021, while its same-property occupancy rate jumped almost five percentage points.

Local politicians and business leaders gathered Tuesday morning to mark the opening of the region’s new district energy system: the Zibi Community Utility (ZCU). 

Ottawa-based REIT's overall revenue grew 8.4 per cent year-over-year to $32.5 million as the occupancy rate of its unfurnished suites ticked up to 94.2 per cent from 91.1 per cent in the same period.

Statistics Canada says a number of signs point to an increasingly tight labour market in recent months, including a drop in the number of part-time workers that would prefer full-time work.

A total of 1,889 residential properties changed hands in April, the Ottawa Real Estate Board says, a 21 per cent decline from a year earlier and just above the five-year average of 1,849.

Builders began work on more than 10,000 new housing units in the capital last year – but that flurry of new construction still wasn’t enough to keep up with city's population growth, agency says.