Even as remote employees start returning to in-person work, Canada’s downtowns remain filled with vacant office buildings. In Calgary, for example, the downtown vacancy rate recently reached 27.5 per cent. Meanwhile, the demand for housing throughout the country is higher than ever. Calgary’s Strategic Group, a company that manages and develops office, retail and apartment properties across the country, has been working toward a solution: office-to-residential conversions.
So far, the company has converted two office buildings to residential units in Edmonton and one in Calgary, creating 2,100 apartments to date—a mix of one– and two–bedroom and studio apartments. The company is now working on its fourth conversion at the Art Nouveau heritage building in Calgary.
We talked to Ken Toews, senior vice-president of development at Strategic Group, about the benefits of office-to-residential conversions and how they can help solve the housing crisis.