[CalgaryTiger]

That might play out well in the long-term if the west end of downtown can add a number of residents to the point it actually becomes more residential than commercial. It also might create a decently dense residential swath from the Beltline via 8th street though DT continuing on through to Kensington. We almost have that now, and with proper pedestrian upgrades along 8th street through DT to the river it could be a game changer for DT.

I was thinking is the nexen building being empty not a huge contributor to the west part of downtown's vacancy rate? When a large building has 100% vacancy surely that has to weigh on the numbers?

 

[ByeByeBaby]

I was thinking is the nexen building being empty not a huge contributor to the west part of downtown's vacancy rate? When a large building has 100% vacancy surely that has to weigh on the numbers?

Nexen is 600K sq ft, so about 5% of the total downtown vacancy. I don't know how much of the office space is in what they consider the west end, but I think it's likely 15-25% of the total space; at those rates, Nexen would be 20%-12% of west end vacancy, respectively.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Nexen is 600K sq ft, so about 5% of the total downtown vacancy. I don't know how much of the office space is in what they consider the west end, but I think it's likely 15-25% of the total space; at those rates, Nexen would be 20%-12% of west end vacancy, respectively.

My high-level math says without Nexen the west side wouldn't be any worse off than the rest of downtown. Give or take a few percentage points.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

My high-level math says without Nexen the west side wouldn't be any worse off than the rest of downtown. Give or take a few percentage points.

I think that only works if you assume the west end is a quite small portion of the total downtown office space, on the order of 5%.

Here's the math assuming 10% in west end:
45M sq ft total * 0.1 pct in west end = 4.5M sq ft in west end
4.5 M * 0.44 vacancy rate =1.98M sq ft vacant
West end excluding Nexen: (1.98-0.6 = 1.38 M sq ft vacant) / (4.5-0.6 = 3.9M sq ft total) = 35.4% vacancy

At 5%:
45*0.05 = 2.25 total space; 2.25*0.44 = 0.99 vacant
(0.99-0.6=0.39) / (2.25-0.6=1.65) = 23.6%, comparable to the rest of downtown.

(At 15% of the market, vacancy ex Nexen is 38.5%, and at 20% it's 40%.)

I don't know how much they consider the west end to be, but 5% seems low; my guess would be 15%. And of course, the vacancy rate anywhere else would be better if you ignored the single worst building in it.

It makes sense that even ex Nexen the west end would have higher vacancy rates; it has a lot of class B and C buildings, and I don't think any class AA ones.