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Nov 20, 2025
Modular home factory in Arviat, Nunavut, to be complete by spring | CBC News Photo by: Modular home factory in Arviat, Nunavut, to be complete by spring | CBC News
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A factory producing modular homes is in progress in Arviat, Nunavut, to produce dozens of units for the region and employ community members in the process.
Sakku Innovative Building Solutions -- the development arm of the Kivalliq Inuit Association (KIA) -- started the project in 2023 and says it should be complete by April.
"It'll be quite the thing when it's done and starts producing homes and creating employment and supplying homes to the whole region -- and hopefully, in the future, beyond this region," Arviat Mayor Joe Savikataaq Jr. said.
"Excited is an understatement. We might have to invent a new word to come up with on how happy we are."
The factory is located near the community's airport. It is slated to produce about 40 housing units a year, manufactured indoors at the new facility and shipped across the Kivalliq region.
Guillaume Guida, vice president of business development with Sakku, said most designs for modular units that come north are adapted for cities in southern Canada, while the homes that will be produced in Arviat are designed with Nunnavummuit in mind.
"We wanted to prove that it was possible to build modular in the North, and install modular in the North, with local people," he said.
The factory is expected to create 40 full-time jobs in the community.
"There would be no point of building a factory in the North if we were not to hire people of the North to work in that factory," Guida said.
The facility was initially expected to be complete this year, but the company said that a need for more warehouse space and post-pandemic inflation delayed the timeline and increased the cost from $50 to $70 million.
Guida said that when the factory opens there will initially be experienced specialists running it, but the plan is to also train Nunnavummuit and to promote Inuit employment.
"So it really anchors the project into the
