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Downtown Real Estate

^ He's been on my Ignore List for the past few months.

Anyway, back to Downtown Real Estate:
Does anyone know when that Albatross virtual golf facility will open on 104 St?
 
Screenshot_2026-01-20_at_10.54.42.JPG
 
Kosy123 said:
Former ATCO Centre as a possible residential conversion in the future?
Click to expand...
Office-to-residential conversions don't make economic sense here the same way they do in Calgary. Our Downtown core already has high supply and has consistently decreased in per-unit value since 2009.

Conversions are useful when the list-to-sell ratio indicates a strong seller's market in a neighborhood with high commercial vacancy rates. Downtown just finally got into balanced market territory in 2024, after years in buyer's market territory. We have the high commercial vacancy rates, but we do not have the residential demand.

IMO businesses won't move into Downtown until rental rates decline (landlords are still pressuring DT businesses to recoup their COVID shortfall), and the only way rents will decline is if demand stays low. There is also the consideration that landlords make the bulk of their money from the underlying property appreciation, so tenancy is less important, but there's not much that can be done about that. If anything, OTR conversions would exacerbate this problem.

In a perfect world, the ATCO site will just get refilled by another big employer offering well-paying jobs.

EDIT: No offence intended, Ian.
 
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This is the old downtown Bay building in Saskatoon, that Gene Dub converted into 130 2-storey lofts in 2009.

I wonder if that's a possibility for ours or has it already been modified too much by UofA so that residential isn't feasible? I haven't even actually gone inside that space although I walk by it often.

Screenshot_20260120_112557_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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policyenthusiast said:
Office-to-residential conversions don't make economic sense here the same way they do in Calgary. Our Downtown core already has high supply and has consistently decreased in per-unit value since 2009.

Conversions are useful when the list-to-sell ratio indicates a strong seller's market in a neighborhood with high commercial vacancy rates. Downtown just finally got into balanced market territory in 2024, after years in buyer's market territory. We have the high commercial vacancy rates, but we do not have the residential demand.

IMO businesses won't move into Downtown until rental rates decline (landlords are still pressuring DT businesses to recoup their COVID shortfall), and the only way rents will decline is if demand stays low. There is also the consideration that landlords make the bulk of their money from the underlying property appreciation, so tenancy is less important, but there's not much that can be done about that. If anything, OTR conversions would exacerbate this problem.

In a perfect world, the ATCO site will just get refilled by another big employer offering well-paying jobs.

EDIT: No offence intended, Ian.
Click to expand...
Well, it would be nice if there were some big employer not already downtown that was willing to fill this space. Any ideas?

Actually, we did a lot of office to residential conversions a long time ago before Calgary even even thought of it, plus our office vacancy is still considerably lower than theirs. Yes it is not great, but not far off the national average.

So there is no emergency crisis here to deal with empty space like there, which means the private sector can deal with it (and they actually are - several conversions have been announced in the last year) rather than have to have the government step in and fund it on a large scale.
 
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