“To be blunt, we have a boring downtown.”
Damon Harmon pulls no punches in describing what he views as one of Calgary’s biggest challenges. The Mount Royal alumnus (Business Administration Diploma, 1995) has been working in the core for 25-plus years, first as a chartered accountant and for the last two decades in commercial leasing, where today he is managing principal at Cresa Alberta Ltd., exclusively focused on representing tenants.
“The downtown core has had a 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. presence. Then it empties out, and without people, there is no vibrancy.
“Vacant space, the displacement of the workforce and the pandemic has created a whole other animal,” Harmon says in a recent interview, “and that is the lack of population coming to the downtown core.”
Harmon isn’t one to complain yet do nothing about it. He leads the Post-Secondary Initiative sub-committee of Calgary Economic Development’s Real Estate Sector Advisory Committee (RESAC), a group supporting the City of Calgary by looking at long-term strategies to revitalize the downtown core.
Harmon was also a panelist at MRU’s Office of Alumni Relations’ Big Ideas event on Dec. 7, the first in a series of conversations for and with alumni. In The Future of Cities, presented by CIBC, MRU alumna Julia Kaiser moderated a discussion that included reflections, calls to action and inspiration for Calgary’s future.
“Calgary has the second-highest concentration of office space per capita in North America, after Stamford, Connecticut,” says David Routledge, who studied business administration at Mount Royal College in 1981. Routledge is a member of MRU’s Board of Governors and vice-president and head of Western Canada office for Oxford Properties Group, a multinational corporation with operations in real estate investment, development and property management.
Oxford holds five downtown Calgary properties, including Bow Valley Square and Devon Tower.
“Downtown Calgary is not on life support, but it is challenged,” Harmon says. “The vacancy problem is well-documented.”
At Calgary Economic Development, RESAC is looking at ways to diversify Calgary’s downtown — everything from attracting tech companies to replace tenants lost in the recent energy sector decline, to converting vacant commercial space for such uses as residential living or vertical farms.
“Undoubtedly, some of that vacant space is going to have to be repurposed, such as conversions to hotels or alternative residential use, and that can be exciting for a city,” Routledge says.
A City of Calgary-funded incentive program is already underway to turn office buildings into residences. The Globe and Mail recently reported there is a shortlist of six projects vying for $45 million, whereby the City will subsidize $75 per square foot of converted space, to a cap of $10-million per project. The winning proposals are expected to be named in the coming weeks.
There are numerous factors that challenge the economic viability of sweeping residential conversions, including the substantial “floorplate”, or footprint, of many downtown buildings. The structures feature dimensions that were practical as large energy company headquarters but are not conducive to residential units. The buildings are deep, which results in much of the floor space being cut off from natural light.
A greater post-secondary presence
Harmon’s vision for a more vibrant and populous downtown starts with the conversion of an office tower to a residence for post-secondary students. Through RESAC, “we are talking to all of Calgary’s post-secondary schools,” he says, “and asking them to come together and look at scale by directing their students who need housing to a downtown residence.”
A project still very much in its infancy, Harmon sees the potential: “We could create something pretty cool.”
But Harmon doesn’t foresee just filling downtown Calgary with student residences from the city’s universities and colleges. He points to SAIT’s School for Advanced Digital Technology in the Odd Fellows Building on 6 Ave. SW, featuring state-of-the-art digital learning spaces where industry and students can collaborate, as another sign that Calgary’s post-secondary community should have a significant downtown presence.
“The impact of universities in a city centre creates partnerships with the business community, and in cities where this has happened, there’s been an increase in research, patents and entrepreneurship,” Harmon says.
“Connecting our post-secondary institutions with the business world will be very important and how various levels of government work with industry will be critical,” Routledge concurs. “One issue Calgary has faced is a deficit of the right kind of knowledge workers with the right kind of STEM education.”
Routledge points to the resurgence of Pittsburgh as a U.S. example that has some parallels with Calgary. “Following the demise of the steel industry, they reinvigorated the downtown by bringing in people, in part through attracting post-secondary institutions and building inner city schools. There’s a lot we can learn from the experiences of other cities.”
Routledge is optimistic about the energy sector’s future. “We have one of the cleanest, best-governed energy industries globally, and we need to be mindful that it is still a huge part of our economy,” he says, while encouraging the business community to diversify.
The “green shoots” of renewal
“We are seeing some green shoots,” Routledge says, citing Shareworks by Morgan Stanley (formerly Solium Capital) and Benevity as two made-in-Calgary success stories. “While it is early days, I think we will see the arrival of more large tech companies.”
Harmon also imagines a downtown Calgary that includes a more diverse full-time population, including families. “Less than one per cent of Calgary’s population lives downtown and you can’t have vibrancy if people don’t live there,” he says. If downtown is more attractive to families, “Having kids living there could bring inner-city schools, basketball courts, parks and playgrounds,” he says.
Harmon dreams about the possible conversion of the Eau Claire Market area, utilizing the vacant YMCA and adjacent parking lots, as a prime location for the highly anticipated city fieldhouse, an indoor athletic facility currently included in a proposal for the Foothills Athletic Park and McMahon Stadium area in Calgary’s northwest.
“Can you imagine if the space was repurposed in that way? There is so much opportunity.”
What’s clear in speaking with Harmon and Routledge is that with inspiration, collaboration and capital, Calgary’s core has the potential to challenge our dated ideas of what a downtown is, while we embrace fresh possibilities and a bold new vision.
“Calgary is an amazing city, a great place to live with a high quality of life and an attractive cost base relative to Vancouver or Toronto,” Routledge says. “That message will resonate and help our customers attract their employees. By extension, it is something for the whole city to think about.”
— Matthew Fox