Calgary was ahead of the curve, but the curve was heading downward. Long before the pandemic locked down cities and drained workers from downtowns, Calgary saw its office life dry up almost overnight, spurring it to become a pioneer in the suddenly pertinent, possibly city-saving business of converting empty office buildings into housing.
While other cities are still weighing if and how this might work in their downtowns, Calgary has more than a dozen office conversion projects underway, with the first expected to be completed by the end of this year. To get here, it’s taken years of planning, more than $150 million, and an exemplary approach to making its downtown a place people would actually want to live.
The city’s problem dates back to mid-2014, when the city was entering one of its cyclical bust periods. The center of Canada’s oil and gas industry, Calgary has been subject to the ups and downs of the global oil markets for decades, taking a hit when new reserves open up in different parts of the world, or when prices seesaw at the whims of OPEC.
Calgary usually weathered the downturns, bouncing back as Canada’s industry adapted to the changing landscape. But around 2014 and 2015, with oil prices dropping nearly 60% in just seven months, the industry began to shift and consolidate in ways the city hadn’t seen before. “There was a feeling around Calgary that this time is different,” says Sheryl McMullen, the city’s manager of investment and marketing.
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