Calgary unveils plans to convert 3 downtown office buildings to homes, hotel rooms
CBC
The city of Calgary has announced its plans to convert three downtown towers into residential housing and hotel units.
One new project was introduced at an event on Wednesday: The Dominion Centre at 665 Eighth Street S.W. in the west end of the core will be refitted to create 132 new homes, with a minimum of 25 per cent to be rented at affordable rates.
Updated plans were also given for two previously announced projects.
A second phase of the Palliser One project at 125 Ninth Avenue S.W. will convert 206,000 square feet of office space into 219 homes.
Together with phase one, 395 one or two-bedroom units will be built from vacant space in the Palliser One building, making it the largest office conversion project to date in Calgary.
And the project at 833 Fourth Ave. S.W., a site that was originally approved as an office-to-residential conversion, the PBA Group of Companies has now revised its plans.
The building's 168,000 square feet of office space will be transformed into the Element by Westin, a long-stay hotel with 226 suites.
"We had built a downtown that worked well at a very specific point in time. That point in time no longer exists," said Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek.
"So the more mixed-use we do downtown, the better able we are to combine housing with employment hubs, with recreation and all of the other many, many things people do in their daily routine, the stronger our downtown will become."
The city invested approximately $50 million into the three projects, compared to a private sector investment of $194 million, according to Gondek.
A total of 17 downtown conversion projects — including 13 active projects and four under review — in the pipeline would create 2,300 new homes.
These are the 13 conversion projects currently underway:
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