2 weeks Ago By Matt Scace
Calgary’s office-to-residential conversion program is being revived by city hall , which came after the city allocated all of its $153-million budget in the program’s first iteration. The new round of funding sets aside $52.5 million in another attempt to lure developers to undertake the expensive and burdensome process of flipping office buildings into multi-unit residential properties.
The renewed efforts come as Calgary’s downtown office space continues to show slight recovery from the doldrums earlier in the decade when large parts of the core hollowed out, with office vacancies peaking at a devastating 33.2 per cent in 2021. The city’s efforts, which began that year, gained attention across borders as a unique solution for cities whose downtown areas were suffering from chronic vacancies.
The new volume of the Downtown Development Incentive Program grants $75 per square foot to developers, with a maximum of $15 million per property once the projects are complete. New applications opened Thursday and will be open until Oct. 31.
After hitting 30.2 per cent vacancy rate in 2023 — still the highest in Canada — downtown office vacancies were , according to CBRE. In 2014, for comparison, downtown vacancies sat at just 9.
8 per cent. X:.
