Committee votes to close funding gap for post-secondary office conversion incentive program
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The city's Downtown Post-Secondary Institution Incentive Program was established in 2021, when city council approved a new downtown strategy aimed at reinventing the core by spurring residential development and transforming vacant or underused office buildings into more active uses.
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Post-secondary institutions that want to expand into the downtown can apply for up to $50 per square foot of convertible office space, up to a maximum of $15 million per project, unless council approves a greater amount.
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So far, the program has garnered one successful application: City officials announced in April that the former Nexen building off of 7th Avenue S.W. would be converted into a 180,000-square-foot academic, teaching and research space for the University of Calgary's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape.
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To help with facility conversion costs, the U of C applied for up to $9 million through the city's incentive program in 2024 but hit a hurdle due to the language of the terms of reference.
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On Tuesday, Thom Mahler, director of the city's downtown strategy, said U of C officials flagged that under the current terms of reference, program funds are allocated based on the original rental area of existing office space.
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'What that means is it limits us to funding only space that was previously designated as office,' he told the committee.
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'What we've learned from talking with institutions — as was the case with the University of Calgary proposal — is they're also very interested in using spaces that are at street level and at Plus-15 level in order to provide vibrant gathering spaces for students, and also to use storage and loading requirements for their programs.'
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In the U of C's case, the university wanted to convert an additional 4,739 square feet of 'retail' and 'storage' space as rentable area in its lease, which led to a $236,950 funding gap.
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'Through discussions with other post-secondary institutions, these spaces, which are often main floor lobby spaces, are essential to intended program delivery and used for things like gallery and event functions, student access and lounge areas, and for the assembly of large-scale projects,' Mahler's report stated.
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