Alex_YYC
Senior Member
It’s only going to be one floor. CDI college is going in.
Are they converting the whole building?
Are they converting the whole building?
Calgary saw 289,515 square feet of positive net absorption of downtown office space in the first quarter of 2019, the most significant quarter of positive absorption since the oil downturn started in 2014.
The report says tenants are now taking back space that they had listed for sublease, converting unused space to co-working configurations, and even turning unoccupied square footage into "amenity space" for their staff.
No that is not a good sign. Imperial Oil must have had more office space built than they needed at the time, thinking they would grow into it. This space is just going to compete with downtown unfortunately.Not necessarily development related, but Imperial Oil is looking to get rid of 2 out of 5 towers they have in Quarry Park:
This is another in a long line of similar stories out there - after a few decades of crazy commercial office space demand, many companies blinded by high and always increasing rents went their own way - Imperial Oil's SE campus was a major deal when they figured they could build there own for cheaper outside the core. A decade later, the office market went a full 180 and a whole lot of pre-2014 decisions about office investment, renting v. owning are unfathomable now.Not necessarily development related, but Imperial Oil is looking to get rid of 2 out of 5 towers they have in Quarry Park:
![]()
Imperial Oil to lease, sell 325,000 sq. ft. of prime Calgary office
More than 325,000 square feet of high-quality office space in the Imperial Campus in southeast Calgary is for lease or for sale in what is considered one of the best office properties in any suburban Canadian market.renx.ca
I read an article in the summer/fall (can't recall) about the major decline of the suburban office parks in the US. Specifically, the article talked about New Jersey where Toys 'R Us' offices were. Granted Toys 'R Us went bankrupt so maybe it's not a good example but either way the company that bought the property can't rent it out and if I remember the article right is considering converting it to residential.Not necessarily development related, but Imperial Oil is looking to get rid of 2 out of 5 towers they have in Quarry Park:
![]()
Imperial Oil to lease, sell 325,000 sq. ft. of prime Calgary office
More than 325,000 square feet of high-quality office space in the Imperial Campus in southeast Calgary is for lease or for sale in what is considered one of the best office properties in any suburban Canadian market.renx.ca
I guess no one on the original Imperial Oil Quarry Park deal did a risk sensitivity analysis on what would happen if office rental rates dropped +50%, there was no major O&G office staff growth needed for the foreseeable future, & work from home because a standard part of office work cultures globally. To be fair, it would have been pretty tough to call those shots pre-2014![]()
That's true - overall suburban office parks perform poorly and are generally a blight for urban development due to their car dependence; dense yet spread out designs. I was thinking more from a Imperial Oil centric perspective - I can see how an individual company can convince themselves that such a move to a suburban office park make sense, especially when space is limited and rents are super high in a traditional downtown office space. IIRC, Imperial's decision specifically was also influenced by their Houston head office's guidance that pushes the suburban office park model on their subsidiaries to drive cost reduction in "non-core" areas.Not that Imperial Oil could foresee what you mention but large scale suburban office parks and their many negatives have been well documented for awhile. It was a risk moving there. IMO Quarry Park have been a failure and thankfully has not been recreated elsewhere in the city.
Very interesting point. This could actually drive 'innovation' and push these companies to automate rather than, at massive cost, relocate. I say innovation in quotes because really these things already exist but I guess it is innovative to actually adopt them. Which doesn't cost nothing but it's surely cheaper than continuously needing to hire because of high turnover.Another example of these suburban employment cluster struggles is occurring on the industrial/distribution side in Balzac just north of the city - much cheaper land for a big warehouses, but at the expense of access to labour. It's easy to convince big companies to set up a hub there, but once built some of these companies struggle to staff their new warehouses as you created a bunch of low-pay jobs relatively far from the city and with no transit and reduces the potential number of employees that could work there.