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The big thing is the new mortgage rules me thinks. it has changed the market so that Calgary is a little more like Toronto, Vancouver, etc.. The economy is slow to recover but I see that jobs are still being created. Part of the reason Calgary's unemployment is still high is the labour force keep growing. As long as the employed work force numbers keep increasing, there will always be a market for these towers.
 
Mountain Man said:
Yep, they opened in Brookfield about a month ago. Would love to see a restaurant open in the old location, that is too prime of a spot to be served by a bank that's closed every evening lol.
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Agree with this 100%. Even if we do get another bank in there I hope whoever owns the space at least does a complete reno of how the building opens up onto Stephen Ave. Right now it's just a blank wall with fencing that seems to be THE hot spot for homeless people to gather along the avenue.
 
One more epic density shot.

https://twitter.com/BrandiBean007?lang=en

DRGdbkcVQAA1VT6.jpg
 

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UrbanWarrior said:
I wonder why Calgary, specifically, is seeing such a large rental construction boom. I'd imagine it's probably the largest per capita among Canadian municipalities.
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It's not actually specific to Calgary. The boom is everywhere. Per capita is a strange. measurement. I'd have to speculate Calgary isn't the largest per capita wise but could be in the near future with the recent changes in Ontario.
 
I didn't say that it was specific to Calgary. I said "I wonder why Calgary, specifically, is seeing such a large rental construction boom." Meaning, well exactly what I said, that I'm wondering specifically why it's happening in Calgary, disregarding the rest of the rental boom. As it is extremely apparent here, while it isn't in other Canadian cities.

Judging by the minuscule level of construction in all of Ontario's cities except for Toronto and sorta London, I'd say it's a pretty good bet that Calgary has the highest level of rental UC per capita. The vast majority of buildings UC in London, Ottawa, Vaughan, and Mississauga are condos, as with Toronto. Though Toronto has had well over 100 buildings over 35 meters UC at any given time over the last decade, so they might beat us out even in level of rental UC relative to size.
 
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Vancouver might be ahead of Calgary in terms of per capita. I believe there are about a dozen rental towers going up but are only twice the population. Don't quote me though, as some of those might be done. Not sure how many are for sure u/c
 
Cowtown said:
Vancouver might be ahead of Calgary in terms of per capita. I believe there are about a dozen rental towers going up but are only twice the population. Don't quote me though, as some of those might be done. Not sure how many are for sure u/c
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Yeah I'm not sure. The Van CMA is 2.5 to our 1.4, so not quite twice the size.

Edit: I just did a check on the SSP skyscraper database... the Vancouver CMA has at least 71 high rises UC currently. So they probably got us beat in rental too, as our current high rise UC total is 17. Not bad though, still higher than Edm and Ott combined.
 
UrbanWarrior said:
Yeah I'm not sure. the Van CMA is 2.5 to our 1.4, so not quite twice the size. But yeah, I just did a check on the SSP skyscraper database... the Vancouver CMA has at least 71 high rises UC currently. So they probably got us beat in rental too, as our current high rise UC total is 17.
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I wonder how current the SSP database is for Vancouver? IIRC it was often out of date. It wouldn't surprise me though as Vancouver and Toronto are mega cities when it comes to high rises. Calgary would likely be ahead of the rest of the major cities for rental towers on a per capita basis, even ahead of Montreal.

Edit: Looks like Montreal has 26 high rises u/c. 15 of those are either office, hotel or condo (that I know of....it might be more). So Montreal could potentially have 11 high rises that are rental, which would be less per capita than Calgary as we have 6 rental towers u/c in total.
 
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We're definitely ahead of Montreal in rental construction even by absolute numbers, at least in terms of new construction. They only have 9 more buildings UC than we do, and most are condos.
 
I looked at Montreal some more, and I can only find a couple of buildings that might be rental, and even those might be condos. Very different market than Calgary for sure.
 
Mountain Man said:
I'd also like to see them close Stephen Ave to bikes and put a bike lane on 9th, there are too many people for bikes to be really useful.
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I'd say the opposite, actually. Remove any restrictions on bicycles. We're so obsessed with regulating and segregating different forms of transportation in North America. However, pedestrians and cyclists coexist wonderfully in many cities. Tokyo is a particularly good example:

tokyo.jpg.662x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg


For the opposite extreme, see Toronto's Queens Quay bike path where they've smothered the entire street with signs, road markings and traffic signals in an effort to force everyone on the ground to follow some complicated choreography dreamed up in the offices of traffic engineers.
 
I used to use Stephen Ave to commute and it's a total pain in the ass, there are just way too many pedestrians to be able to get anywhere efficiently, and none of them pay attention to what's going on around them. Commuting on a bike should mean that you can go somewhere between walking speed and driving speed, and on a street that is filled with pedestrians, that's not possible. If that pic above had 10x as many pedestrians and they were all walking in the middle of the street completely oblivious to whats around them, then it would be more accurate.
 
Mountain Man said:
I used to use Stephen Ave to commute and it's a total pain in the ass, there are just way too many pedestrians to be able to get anywhere efficiently, and none of them pay attention to what's going on around them. Commuting on a bike should mean that you can go somewhere between walking speed and driving speed, and on a street that is filled with pedestrians, that's not possible. If that pic above had 10x as many pedestrians and they were all walking in the middle of the street completely oblivious to whats around them, then it would be more accurate.
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Replace the auto lane in the middle by turning it into a bike lane. Same idea as the Peace Bridge.
 
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