We've got pretty good momentum now. It's not 2021 where the conversation was a dead core with vacancy rates pushing 10%.
- We have around 600 residential units under construction, and around 2500 in the development permit stage. This isn't counting all the projects coming in as well like Ice District Phase II's initial units, the Parks Phase II, Autograph's project, etc.
- As of 2025, we've also got a total of 1132 new residential units enter the downtown market specifically, not counting Wihkwentowin.
- Downtown's population is probably in the 15k range by now, with the vacancy rate drops and new residential projects that recently opened.
- Vacancy rates downtown have hovered 5% even with all the new builds.
- We've got major employers doubling down on downtown, either through new leases or renovation of buildings like ATB and the National Bank Centre (both of which account for almost $100 million, not counting the recent renovations at the now ATCO place and Rice Howard Place)
- Office vacancy rates have stabilized to 19% with expectations that it's going to keep going down, beating 2025 expectations where CBRE was predicting a vacancy increase based on employers downsizing their leases.
- Employment numbers downtown has been increasing year on year.
- We're getting out of province investment interest like with the Connect Centre.
- Transit ridership has been increasing benefiting downtown.
The main glaring issue is retail interest, and frankly with all the momentum we're finally seeing? I don't really doubt that we're going to get some movement on that too in the future.
