2008 Total Non-residential Building Starts now Forecast at 79.5 Million Square Feet
The accompanying table sets out CanaData's latest square footage forecasts for ICI construction in Canada, by region, out to 2010. ICI stands for industrial, commercial and institutional. These are the three major non-residential building construction categories.

The 2008 commercial starts figure has been bumped up a tiny bit since the last forecast in January and institutional starts have been cut by the same amount. The net result is to leave the total square footage forecast the same for 2008, at 79.5 million. This will be down by about 10 million square feet from 2007's revised level of 89.1 million square feet. A further cyclical decline is expected in 2009 (73.0 million), before recovery gets underway again in 2010 (76.5 million).

Unlike the U.S., where slowdown/recession is having a clear impact on jobs and retail spending, Canadians are still finding buoyant employment prospects and are spending accordingly. This is providing the confidence for owners to proceed with investment spending in the commercial area.

Governments, on the other hand, are playing it cautious with respect to a possible spillover of U.S. downturn woes into Canada and are retrenching somewhat in the area of capital spending. In the industrial sector, facilities expansions continue to be inhibited by concerns about the impact of Canada's high-valued currency on export sales.