Only time will tell if a new 26-acre light industrial business park will do what the Town of Irricana wants.

The community is hoping the park will help boost the local live-and-work population of a community that currently bids a daily good-bye to 87 per cent of its adult population.

According to the town's last census, that's the number of residents who leave Irricana every day to commute to jobs, mostly in the nearby cities of Airdrie and Calgary, says Irricana realtor Larry Martin.

Martin, also a member of the town's economic development committee, feels pretty good about the new business park's long-term impact on the town's economic stability. And why not?

Carla Victor, Business Edge
Irricana real estate agent Larry Martin expects an industrial park on this site north of the town will attract new business.

Located near the junction of Highway 9 and 567, Irricana is 18 minutes east of Airdrie and about 35 minutes from Calgary. But the town's first true business park holds a trump card for new and potential residents who may want to hang up a shingle in Irricana, which has no business tax. And just last week, the community officially changed its municipal status from village to town.

Irricana's last census in 2001 pegged the population at 1,043 people, and town economic development officer Brenda Burrows expects that to rise when this year's census results are tallied - and to continue to rise as the business park develops.

Like other communities within easy commuting distance of Alberta's two largest cities, lower land prices and the chance to live in a small-town community means residential housing in Irricana is pretty much booming, at least in terms of demand.

Supply is another thing, admits Martin, who says resale houses in Irricana don't spend much time on the public market. These days, a 1,100- to 1,200-sq.-ft. new home with a double-car garage on a 50-plus-foot lot hits the Irricana market somewhere around $180,000.

"For resale, we're averaging somewhere around $140,000 to $150,000" for a similar-sized home, he says.

To boost supply, development has started in two new residential subdivisions. One will hold 10 duplexes and four single-family homes. The other has 14 new single-family lots.

The fully serviced lots sell for $30,000, less than half of a bare lot price in a suburban Calgary neighbourhood.

Farther north, land and housing prices are the biggest attraction in the community of Morinville, 10 minutes from the amenity-packed city of St. Albert. Realtor Brent Melville says Morinville is an especially hot market for first-time buyers.

It's also fairly price-conscious, says Melville. Although new estate homes are being built in Morinville, resale homes priced at more than $200,000 were a tough sell until recent months. To date, the resale MLS record for that community of about 6,300 people stands at $277,000.

Most buyers in the Morinville market want a home in the $180,000 to $200,000 range, says Melville. In early June, a 25-year-old bungalow with 1,100 sq. ft. of developed space, a big yard and a detached garage would likely hit that market at approximately $175,000.

Again, commuters drive the residential property market. Melville, a two-term town councillor who didn't run last fall, says about 68 per cent of Morinville's adult residents commute to jobs in St. Albert or Edmonton.

Good roads and urban sprawl have had a significant impact on what homeowners deem a reasonable commute, agrees Calgary new-home builder Dave Nixon.

Nixon's company, DreamWest Homes, started building in Okotoks several years ago "so we could get a showhome position. It's very difficult for small builders to get a showhome position within the city limits."

Eight years later, Nixon's company now focuses solely on the Okotoks market, building two-storey "move-up" homes in the $260,000-plus range, as well as executive homes for more than $500,000.

While the cost of building a home in Okotoks isn't any lower than in Calgary, 18 kilometres to the north, lower land prices mean "there's no doubt you can get more house for the money," says Nixon.

Spacious lots on Sheep River Ridge in Okotoks sell for about $120,000. It's not cheap, but Nixon figures it's less than half the cost of a comparable lot in some of Calgary's toniest neighbourhoods.

Shawn Vickers' real estate portfolio specializes in rural acreages and farms south and southwest of Calgary. Those in the market for rural residential real estate soon learn "it's pretty tough to get into the country for under $350,000," says Vickers.

Acreages in the $400,000 to $550,000 range tend to sell quickly, adds Vickers. He says buyers in the $400,000 range can probably buy a 1,500-sq.-ft. home on three to six acres.

Recent information from the Edmonton Real Estate Board shows that in rural areas, the number of acreages with homes sold by the end of April 2005 was 8.6 per cent higher than the same period last year, with prices up 10.7 per cent.

Prices of single-family homes were also higher in Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, Morinville and Stony Plain. The average price of a single-family home in Stony Plain hit $211,500 by the end of April. That's still lower than the Edmonton region's overall figure of $218,901.

First-quarter out-of-town statistics for the Calgary region show MLS sales in Airdrie, Strathmore and Chestermere were up slightly over the same period of 2004, with High River, Okotoks and Cochrane posting numbers similar to last year. Average sale prices in all of these communities rose from 2004 to 2005.

Irricana's average residential home price in the first quarter of 2005 was $121,393, down from the previous year's figure of $135,133. Then again, with fewer than 1,1000 residents, Irricana's not in the same league as some of Calgary's other neighbouring communities.

While average prices are a useful way to show market trends, a single house can skew their value as a market snapshot - especially when only eight homes sold in Irricana in the first quarter of 2005, down one from the same period in 2004.

Besides all that, Irricana registered the first eight sales of this year (January-March) before that new business park opened - and before work really got started on those new residential lots.

With these now in place, Martin says the town is taking some wise steps toward a bright future. Irricana may always be a commuter town, but in an economy where bigger is better, this town's welcome mat is definitely out.

(Joy Gregory can be reached at joy@businessedge.ca)