West End Attracts Calgarians

This is a Calgary news story, published by calgaryherald, that relates primarily to Kwong news.

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Calgary Downtown Association

calgaryherald

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Business

Business & Economics

Calgary embraced bold idea of transforming vacant offices into housing. How is it faring?

Summary

Nutrition label

73% Informative

Calgary launched a plan four years ago to lure Calgarians to live downtown.

The office vacancy rate in the city spiked from 9.8% in 2014 to more than 33% in 2021 .

The city was facing a phenomenon urban theorists refer to as the doom loop: as people stop using office spaces, the economy built around those occupants begins to fade.

The city's $20 million contribution allowed developers to raise $350 million in private investment.

Nine more conversions are in the works, six of which will be completed by this year and the rest would arrive in the market by 2026 .

Critics have pointed out that office towers are generally not compatible with the spatial configuration for housing.

It isn’t usual for such projects to take this long — “you can build a million-square-foot office tower in four years ,” Kwong said. But despite the delays, he said the industry largely thinks it is a great idea. “I hope (all the projects) don’t stop getting funding,” he added. “We need to do something about this large vacancy we have in our downtown.”.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful