UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
I’ve said this sooo many times! I really hope it happens. Nexen Tower would make a perfect vertical farm. Floor plates too large for residential conversion but floor heights high enough for corn and orange trees etc.
I see the value for things like herbs/micro greens.I really don't see much value in vertical farms. They're an interesting gimmick but not really a serious solution to any problem.
Dedicating our best real estate and most valuable square footage in the city to a low value producing use like farming just isn't economically feasible, at least in the long term. We have plenty of land in Alberta; that's not an issue. If we do find a strong economic reason to do hydroponics, we can do them in specially constructed facilities on land where it makes more sense (say, near some of the small satellite towns around the city).
Filling a bunch of office towers with plants wouldn't do anything to revitalize downtown either. We should be filling them with people.
Ya I suppose I should clarify that my skepticism is more geared towards the larger scale stuff you see in renders, like this:I see the value for things like herbs/micro greens.
There are some restaurants in the city that already do this themselves (Teatro Group), but not all restaurants have the space/resources to do it.
If all downtown restaurants were able to source fresh produce, daily, within a couple kilometres, rather than from 20+ km (or hundreds/thousands of km in the winter) I think that would be great.
I don’t think we need floors and floors of these vertical farms, but if they can convert a few, that’s thousands of square feet of vacant office space now occupied.
Anything goes homeless shelters? Just barricade the upper levels off from below lol.If autonomous cars really become a thing and parking is no longer needed, I can see a lot of underground parkades converting to hydroponic farming. Not much else you can do with the below grade space.
Good news! I'm still not a fan of taxpayer dollars going to these but at least we're seeing some progress.The construction tender is out for another of the downtown office conversion projects. 112 units @ 909 5th Ave SW
https://newsroom.calgary.ca/city-an...ial-conversion-projects-approved-for-funding/
https://people-1st.ca/current-projects/