By March of 2020, the City of Estevan had issued four building permits that had a dollar value of $81,700. Compare that to this year, and the City has issued the same amount of permits, but they have generated $340,605, a $258,905 increase from the pace set the year before.

"It's just the types of construction that are happening," said City Manager Jeff Ward. "Last year, it was mainly very small retail space transitions and residentials. This year, some of those building permits are for larger commercial construction as well as multi-unit renovations. So it's good to see investment into some of these large capital and multi-unit facilities, it just shows confidence in the local area to be putting a little more investment into larger construction costs in the area."

While the nature of the building permits is protected under The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, this does still potentially mean some good things for the Estevan job market as all four building permits this year fall under the commercial category, whereas last year it was all under miscellaneous. While there are not any job postings yet, Ward says that when there is commercial construction, it usually leads to job creation.

"For the ones that are related to commercial, we do expect that it would lead to some new commercial opportunities that are happening in Estevan. Obviously we can't release any specific information on the permits but I would say that a couple of those larger building permits will relate to increased commercial activity."

Last year's permits were more small scale items such as wall repairs and fire separation wall installations, whereas this year's permits are more for full renovations and new construction. The city has been doing a few things to try and attract business to Estevan, and Ward says that a lot of interest has been growing because of some initiatives both in and outside of the city.

"We do have the one dollar lots and we have had a lot of traction on that. We've expanded our marketing through MLS Listings as well as some advertising in Regina and Saskatoon and we're getting more calls and traction in relation to that, so hopefully we see some investment and job creation through that."

Ward also said they've had some success with their campaign to revitalize storefronts around the city, and shared praises for the Southeast Business Startup in Estevan and the work they have done in their short time in the city.