Alston Properties and Slate Asset Management’s Dominion Centre housing project in Calgary will receive funding through the office-to-residential conversion program and the Downtown Retrofit Challenge. This newly-announced project will improve climate resiliency, reduce emissions and create 132 new homes – all critical priorities for Calgary’s Downtown. A minimum of 25 per cent of the units will be rented at affordable rates.
“Calgary’s office conversion programs remain one of our greatest successes and have become internationally recognized as the template for creating new homes in existing downtown office buildings,” says Mayor Jyoti Gondek. “It’s exciting to announce three projects today that are tackling office conversions in different ways – through climate resilient initiatives, by building much needed long-stay hotel rooms, and accelerating housing delivery.”
Additionally, the second phase of Aspen Properties’ Palliser One office-to-residential housing project has been approved for funding under the office to residential conversion program which will more than double its housing delivery by adding 395 homes to Calgary’s downtown.
“In the first two years of our office conversion programs, we’ve seen tremendous interest from the private sector in partnering on these transformational projects,” says Sheryl McMullen, manager of Investment & Marketing for Downtown Strategy. “We have 17 projects in our pipeline currently and are committed to working with other levels of government to secure funding to expand that number as we move into the new year.”
The PBA Group of Companies’ project at 833 4 Avenue S.W., which was originally approved as an office-to-residential conversion, is now revised as a hotel conversion. The approved project will convert the existing office building to a long-stay hotel offering 226 suites for tourists and business visitors in Calgary.
Together these three projects will in total remove approximately 675,000 square feet of surplus office space from Calgary’s Downtown Office market.
Dominion Centre, Palliser One, and Element by Westin Hotel are just three of 17 office conversion projects in the pipeline for Calgary.
