Alex_YYC
Senior Member
It’s only going to be one floor. CDI college is going in.
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- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Operater
Active Member
Hi Group,
Not Sure if the Whole Bldg is Being Redeveloped, but I see Opportunities to Revevelope the Whole East Block on the North Side of 7th Ave Plus the South Side of 6th
Ave on the East Side. What Goes In? Not sure but It Would B Interesting just the same.
Tnx,
Operater
Not Sure if the Whole Bldg is Being Redeveloped, but I see Opportunities to Revevelope the Whole East Block on the North Side of 7th Ave Plus the South Side of 6th
Ave on the East Side. What Goes In? Not sure but It Would B Interesting just the same.
Tnx,
Operater
Patrick.1980
Active Member
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/downtown-calgary-vacancy-rate-1.4981010
Office vacancy rate dips in downtown Calgary, but yet could soar to record highs, report says
Office vacancy rate dips in downtown Calgary, but yet could soar to record highs, report says
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calg...-space-downtown-cbre-report-1.5080898?cmp=rss
'At long last,' office vacancy rate declines in downtown Calgary: report
'At long last,' office vacancy rate declines in downtown Calgary: report
Atticus
Active Member
Work-from-home success changing Calgary office use assumptions, CEOs say
Work-from-home measures taken to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic are challenging long-held assumptions about how Canada's oil and gas sector should provide and care for its office workers.
calgary.ctvnews.ca
MichaelS
Senior Member
Not necessarily development related, but Imperial Oil is looking to get rid of 2 out of 5 towers they have in Quarry Park:
renx.ca
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
UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
Wow that’s not a good sign.
JonnyCanuck
Senior Member
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.
CBBarnett
Senior Member
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.
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
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
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.
I found an article from 2020, obviously outdated for what I mention above but that at least lays out some of the numbers involved:
Point View Wayne Properties, which purchased the property in July of 2019 for $19 million. The 193-acre site, which includes a helipad, has an estimated market value of $94.1 million.
The Wayne complex served as the home for Toys R Us for 16 years and features two interconnected office buildings totaling over 621,000 square feet, a real estate investment firm involved in the lease previously said.
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
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 has been a failure and thankfully has not been recreated elsewhere in the city.
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CBBarnett
Senior Member
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.
The trade off in saving rent for moving to a suburban office park, companies risks reducing access for the region's labour pool by moving from the centre of the region with great transportation options by all modes to an area less well served. There is a reason downtown is a thing, after all - being central to the regional labour pool is worth something, including higher land values and rents. The level of benefit of being central to the labour market would vary depending on the business and industry. Not everyone needs centrality, some can't succeed without it.
Calgary will eventually become more poly-centric - as we have been and if we continue to follow the model most cities go - but this is a slow process and not one without causalities (e.g. the cost is of Imperial's Quarry Park suburban office park adventure may exceed the costs if they had just stayed put renting in the core).
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.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
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.