Keller breaks ground on $47M housing build

A $47-million project that will add 165 rental units to Brandon’s housing stock was officially launched Friday morning.

Keller Developments, a general construction contractor, broke ground at 1501 Braecrest Dr. on the North Hill for Apollo Heights Phase 2, with politicians and other guests hoisting shovels for the sod-turning ceremony.

The project marks a significant expansion of housing availability in a fast-growing part of the city, company president Evan Keller told participants.

“This is probably our largest project to date — 165 housing units, about a $47-million investment overall,” he said.

“Housing is important for the area. To facilitate all the other growth we’re trying to achieve, we need places for people to live and make homes.”

Keller said the seven-acre development will include 13 buildings featuring a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units, along with commercial and shared community spaces.

Of the 165 units, 25 will be affordable housing, priced according to federal income guidelines.

“Right now, that’s about $1,043 per month for the affordable units,” he told the Sun.

Construction will begin immediately, with groundwork set to start “this week or next week,” Keller said.

The company expects the first units to be ready for tenants within 15 months, with full completion projected in two to two and a half years.

Brandon-Souris MP Grant Jackson welcomed the launch, calling it a badly needed addition to the region’s housing stock.

“Housing, and particularly housing that people can afford, is getting harder and harder to find,” Jackson said. “I hear it here in Brandon, and I hear it in every rural community I’ve been to.”

Jackson pointed to the challenges developers face navigating the federal housing system, saying many builders have walked away from federally supported projects because “the federal bureaucracy doesn’t make it easy to build this type of housing.”

He thanked Keller Developments for “sticking with it,” adding, “It’s badly needed … thank you for delivering this service to the community.”

The project will have regional significance, supporting not only Brandon residents but people from surrounding rural areas who move into the city for school or work, Spruce Woods MLA Colleen Robbins said.

“Every one of the 165 units — that’s a lot of families, seniors, people who are going to be able to use this,” she said. “I just love the plan. I love the green space. I love the amenities.”

Robbins also noted rising taxes and construction costs that have made multi-unit developments more difficult to build.

“Congratulations on keeping this moving and going forward with it,” she said.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said the Braecrest site has been idle for decades and called the development “a great project” that reflects Brandon’s growing population and urgent housing needs.

“We’re having buildings built that people want to get into before they’re even completed — that’s how much of a need there is,” he said.

Fawcett said the North Hill has been seeing an increase in development and that the city must “make sure we’re managing this growth,” noting major infrastructure work planned for the 18th Street and Braecrest intersection next spring.

“It’s a great community, and this will be an exceptional addition,” he told the Sun.

The project’s impact on schools was already anticipated by the Brandon School Division, which recently changed school boundaries because Kirkcaldy Heights School could no longer handle projected enrolment increases.

The division faces significant pressure across the city; this year it had “more classes than we had classrooms” for K-8 students, Supt. Mathew Gustafson told the Sun when contacted about the housing development.

“We knew that Kirkcaldy Heights … was facing capacity issues, and so we changed the catchment area for that to George Fitton School earlier,” he said. “Bus routes have already been added to support the shift.”

While Fawcett suggested to the Sun that expanding Kirkcaldy Heights might someday be more economical than building a new school, Gustafson said such an expansion is not currently part of BSD’s five-year capital plan.

“If the enrolment numbers continue to climb, an additional K-8 school will also be a likely request, but we want to look at where the future growth is and try to do some projections before deciding where that request might be,” he said.

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