After years of planning, approvals and revisions, shovels are finally in the ground at Nelson’s Railtown Flats workforce housing project.
Crews have started work on the six-storey, 55-unit development at 85 Baker St., which is intended to help local employers recruit and retain staff in a tight housing market.
First introduced in 2022, the $31.55-million project is being led by the Railtown Housing Society, created by the Nelson and District Chamber of Commerce.
The completed building will include studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. Sixteen units will be offered at below-market rent, with the remainder priced at market rates and prioritized for local workers and businesses.
“We’re very excited. It’s been a journey to get here,” said Railtown Housing Society president Chuck Bennett.
“There were lots of times when we weren’t sure we were going to get here. But everybody kept pulling in the same direction, so we’re super excited.”
Bennett said reaching the construction stage followed years of detailed planning, financing work and approvals.
“We’ve done so much work and so much due diligence on this project because of all the bumps in the road that we’ve had in terms of approvals and getting there and the financing that we have gone through our project plans over and over and over again,” he said. “But we’re very confident that we’re going to meet our construction targets.”
Completion is expected in fall 2027, a timeline Bennett said the society is confident in.
“We’re super confident. We’re off the ground now with the construction started and everything is going very smoothly.”
He said work on the site is already well underway.
“It’s full bore right now. There’s guys on site. Fences are set up. If you drive by, there’s lots of work being done. You can see progress pretty much every single day.”
The Province, through BC Housing’s BC Builds program, is contributing a $12.38-million grant to the project. The program is designed to accelerate housing delivery through partnerships with governments, non-profits and landowners.
The City of Nelson has also approved a $100,000 contribution through its Affordable Housing Fund and Downtown Waterfront Reserve Fund.
Once complete, the building will include street-level commercial space and on-site parking. It will be owned and operated by the Railtown Housing Society, with Pac West Builders serving as general contractor and Kalesnikoff supplying prefabricated mass timber modular units manufactured near Castlegar.
The project is also expected to source about 80 per cent of materials and labour locally during construction.
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