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Calgary's Downtown Dilemma

JonnyCanuck said:
I was hearing on the news last night when they announced these recent residential conversions, that the downtown vacancy rate is at a new high of 33%. So even with all these new tech companies coming on board and occupying some of the space, it has not made any difference. Office space is emptying faster than it can be reoccupied.
Apparently the city's objective with more conversions and other business migration, is to reduce the vacancy rate to under 20% .... but that is in 10 years time!!!
Wow ... anything close to 20% vacancy is still a big problem in the year 2032.
Click to expand...
Candidly, I suspect that office vacancy will be a huge problem for a long time for many many cities. Calgary was just hit with the double whammy of oil + remote work. A lot of those tech companies are remote and have workers all over the country, even if their HQs are in Calgary.

Seattle's downtown office vacancy is near 20%, San Francisco is at 24%, Houston is ~24%. Some of those may get worse before they get better, as commercial leases roll off in the next few years. In Canada Calgary has had it the worst, but Vancouver is near 8% and that's the tightest market in North America (it was ~2% pre-COVID).
 
darwink said:
Sure. Just have to keep in mind PSE requires on-going operational support and someone has to pay for it. In some preliminary modelling last year for a Mayoral campaign, ended up with being able to support $30 million a year in operations with a CRL downtown, which at a stretch would support 4000 students, 500 staff in about a million square feet. Gotta take into account though, can't just double those numbers up--when you expand it isn't doubling what you have, it is expanding in breadth, and different areas of study require more $ per student (we focused on relatively cheap to provide computer science and math in the model).
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A post-secondary institution big enough to make a difference would almost certainly need to be led by the Province, but interesting to know that the City could support 4,000 students in 1 M sf by your calculations.

ByeByeBaby said:
My understanding is that the U of C is internally resistant to the idea of increasing the scope of its' satellite campuses, which makes sense given that part of the point of a university is to leverage the power of a bunch of academics working in proximity. SAIT is a no go, I'm sure; Mount Royal gave up their downtown campus 20 years ago or so.
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I would 100% expect U of C to resist a downtown campus, but presumably the promise of a fat increase to their budget would do the trick to overcome said resistance, especially if it were a NDP government doing the increasing, since the baseline level of trust would be a lot higher.
 
UrbanRED said:
Candidly, I suspect that office vacancy will be a huge problem for a long time for many many cities. Calgary was just hit with the double whammy of oil + remote work. A lot of those tech companies are remote and have workers all over the country, even if their HQs are in Calgary.

Seattle's downtown office vacancy is near 20%, San Francisco is at 24%, Houston is ~24%. Some of those may get worse before they get better, as commercial leases roll off in the next few years. In Canada Calgary has had it the worst, but Vancouver is near 8% and that's the tightest market in North America (it was ~2% pre-COVID).
Click to expand...
Glad to hear we aren't the only city with a massive surplus of office space!
 
I did not see this posted anywhere. The old Scotia Bank space on 8th Ave & 2 St SW .... 2 stories & big windows ... is going to be an Italian themed establishment.
www.barbarellabar.ca

Barbarella Bar Calgary

Upscale casual restaurant in downtown Calgary serving you vibrant coastal cuisine and an escape to the Italian South, circa 1968.
www.barbarellabar.ca www.barbarellabar.ca

It is a big space so Concorde Group are 'banking' (pun intended) on it to be a popular hangout.
 
Last night I was woken at 4 in the morning by what sounded like wave after wave of sirens. Not knowing what it was all about I went back to sleep after it subsided. On the news this morning it was reported as an incident with no other details.
I have now read that someone (with a knife) was inside city hall and set 4 fires which activated the sprinklers and of course the alarms. The fires were put out but there is substantial water damage. Obvious question is how someone could get in and wander around city hall at that hour?
Incidents like these and what is being reported on the LRT with more frequency, is not helping with the image of Calgary's downtown.
 
globalnews.ca

Man with ‘large knife’ arrested at Calgary city hall Tuesday morning - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

Calgary police arrested a man Tuesday morning after police say he allegedly set four fires inside Calgary city hall and was also carrying a "large knife."
globalnews.ca globalnews.ca

"CPS said the man gained entry by smashing the glass at the front of the building."

"In a news release sent out later Tuesday morning, CPS said the man is a client of the Police and Crisis Team (PACT), and the incident highlights the importance of working with Alberta Health Services to offer assessment, support, and consultation for people experiencing a mental health crisis."
 
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