artvandelay
Active Member
Or attract 1,000 more CS grads from elsewhere and not bear the cost of educating them.
I think some combination of both is the rational path to follow.
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Calgary's Downtown Dilemma
- Thread starter Alex_YYC
- Start date
I think some combination of both is the rational path to follow.
maestro
Senior Member
The REITs and pension funds created this market situation. Let them figure it out.. Just be patient. Desperation is when the coolest things happen.I wouldn't give them any subsidizes for residential conversions and rather see that spent on civic improvements. Cars have been given priority for so long leading to anti car sentiments now. No mode should have priority over any other mode. Otherwise, you will turn people off.
darwink
Senior Member
Any city can run the ‘move here and move your workforce here’ play. No strategic advantage there. Companies don’t want the entire ecosystem to be them and people they move/attract. It isn’t viable for them and we shouldn’t think that it is viable for us. If it was, we would have an Amazon office beyond sales and logistics.Or attract 1,000 more CS grads from elsewhere and not bear the cost of educating them.
I think some combination of both is the rational path to follow.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Horrible horrible column piece in the Herald today. That Postmedia gives these mindless idiots the time and space they do is kind of insane. Idiot opinion
Calgcouver
Active Member
More dusty old boomer columnists that have aged out of having an interesting take on anything. Calgary Herald, enjoy your death march of diminishing readership/profits to eventual obsolescence.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
The idea that parking should be very cheap and easy needs to die, no area worth going to has cheap and easy parking.
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
Parking downtown is cheap and easy to get to .... in the evening and on weekends. What the city is trying to do is attract more people for events/concerts/sports which of course are held ... in the evening and on weekends!
Of course this columnist wants to point to Mon-Fri day time parking rates which is irrelevant.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
I am actually curious if the Herald has ever ran an opinion article of the perspective of someone who lives downtown? I don't recall a single article from someone who walks for transportation or lives downtown.
Beyond the anti-urban, click-bait games of the Herald; the great irony of course, is most of downtown's issues are a result of appeasing for decades to the types of attitudes represented in the articles. We listened to these complaints and created the environment they often claimed to want - turns out their ideas were terrible.
This is by a wide margin the least talked about group of commuters in downtown - hundreds of people are on the trains and going about their day, waiting for brutally long Sunday morning LRT frequencies. Of course, it's not rush hour Tuesday busy - but thanks to Herald and other simplifying narratives about what downtown is and who uses it, these people are completely invisible in the way we talk and plan downtown. Hey but at least the parking is free Sundays, right?
Beyond the anti-urban, click-bait games of the Herald; the great irony of course, is most of downtown's issues are a result of appeasing for decades to the types of attitudes represented in the articles. We listened to these complaints and created the environment they often claimed to want - turns out their ideas were terrible.
- We created a unsustainable, mono-culture of office development to support a commuter-centric ideology. Work and home are separate and apart, downtown is for work only!
- We created overly wide unpleasant streets with far too much parking supply to support a car culture easy to drive in. We must accommodate the driving commuters in downtown even if it sacrifices the overall safety, efficiency and pleasantness of the area they are trying to visit.
- Most importantly and never mentioned - thousands of people currently do, and have for decades, live in downtown. Everything we have done to make driving, parking, and office redevelopment easier has mostly been ignoring (or sometimes directly in opposition to) the needs of the people who actually live in downtown.
- Downtown is very fast growing. It's a measurable fact that downtown is a popular place to live and has been for a while. The 2021 census estimates the downtown population is growing at 3x the rate of the overall city and region link
- While driving is the most popular way to get around in Calgary overall, you'd never know that in a big city, there is local variations to how people choose to get around if all you read were Herald columns. Prior to 2019, Transit, walking and cycling were more popular than driving in downtown link
This is by a wide margin the least talked about group of commuters in downtown - hundreds of people are on the trains and going about their day, waiting for brutally long Sunday morning LRT frequencies. Of course, it's not rush hour Tuesday busy - but thanks to Herald and other simplifying narratives about what downtown is and who uses it, these people are completely invisible in the way we talk and plan downtown. Hey but at least the parking is free Sundays, right?
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CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Calgary shows way as office towers get new lease on life, transformed into housing
Conversions are a feel-good solution to the twin dilemmas of excess office space and a lack of affordable housing. Find out more
calgarysun.com
Some interesting quotes from the article...
So far, Calgary’s funding has been allocated to eight projects — five of which are currently under construction with three conditionally approved but unannounced by the city. The remaining $27 million is still up for grabs, according to Calgary’s downtown development and strategy manager, Natalie Marchut.
“Through that reopening for the remaining funds we received another nine applications to the program that are all under review at the moment, and the remaining $27 million will be allocated to the successful candidates of that round of submissions,” she said.
Could you imagine a total of 17 conversions underway. Wonder if they end up finding the money for all of these. If the shoe fits, wear it.
Copied the article over to the Office Conversion thread also. If we had 17 buildings converted we might have to change the thread name to Calgary's Downtown Victory 
In all seriousness though, if we did ever convert that many buildings, Calgary could very well become the world leader in office to residential conversion.
In all seriousness though, if we did ever convert that many buildings, Calgary could very well become the world leader in office to residential conversion.
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
I don't think it's a matter of "if" but "when" at this point, if we already have 8 in the works with at least a couple more pending approval.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
From the downtown office supply perspective, this really isn't much as our over-built office sector is so overbuilt - it's really not that noticeable yet. To be clear, it's still definitely good news - it's just we have so many extra millions of square feet it'll be a long go.Copied the article over to the Office Conversion thread also. If we had 17 buildings converted we might have to change the thread name to Calgary's Downtown Victory
In all seriousness though, if we did ever convert that many buildings, Calgary could very well become the world leader in office to residential conversion.
But from the downtown housing supply perspective, some 800 units will be created via this program in the short-term. This is actually a real game changer. I am actually surprised the housing side doesn't more airtime as it'll be far more noticeable than the slightly fewer offices.
Today Eau Claire + DTW + Downtown Commercial + DEV + Chinatown = ~12,000 units. If the program keeps up, it's feasible to see a few thousand units coming from conversion in the not too distant future. Easily 10 - 30% unit growth from this program alone.
In addition to housing supply, there's the opportunity is unit diversity. There's already some synergies for affordable housing which we have seen in the first wave of projects, but more generally conversion is creating "weirder" units (e.g. larger, different roof heights etc.). This adds to the mix of multi-family in the core, which is largely a stagnant small 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom market.
Create a few thousand weirder units, in weird buildings. Fast forward a few decades, and these buildings add to the mix of incomes, qualities, styles, and building amenities available of downtown. Diversity means resilience - there's always a building, price point or unit design that allows different people and families to live in the core.
It's not a silver bullet - and there's lots of good arguments for and against subsidization of the conversions - but it's impact will be substantial and noticeable.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Took the train into downtown from the NW this morning, probably the first time I've done that in a good 10-15 years. Train was dead at 8am, lots of empty seats still. Lots of people likely working from home because of the weather, but still, that's the deadest I've seen the C-train in rush hour maybe ever!
Interesting. I wonder how much of it is due to the weather? I took the train a couple of times this summer, downtown to Brentwood. Both times at 2:30pm on a weekday and the cars were mostly full.
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
Downtown businesses struggle with low traffic, hoping for boost from new projects
Businesses in downtown Calgary are being crushed by the weight of empty office towers, high parking prices and crime
calgaryherald.com
For those that are downtown either living or working, this is no surprise. However it does confirm that even without COVID closures and restrictions for an extended period of time, retail & hospitality businesses are still struggling. Surprising that there is no mention of how many empty street front spaces there are in the core, and even in the Beltline, that were once occupied by a store or restaurant. The writer seems to meander a bit, for example talking about the event center being a possible savior. Personally, I don't think that is going to do anything for businesses in the downtown core.