Calgary’s first office-to-residential-conversion to open early 2024
Posted Nov 10, 2023 2:32 pm.
Last Updated Nov 11, 2023 2:04 pm.
The first office to residential building conversion in Calgary’s downtown is set to open to tenants early next year.
The Cornerstone, as 9 Street and 5 Avenue SW will have 112 suites.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek says the program has been so popular the city has paused any new applications.
“We’ve got 13 projects that’ve been approved and we’ve got another four in the pipeline so it’ll be 17 in total and when all of those come online, we’ll be looking at 2,300 units of housing for folks,” she said. “Another 226 hotel suite — this is a big deal — and it’s 2.3 million square feet of what was office space being turned into homes.”
Under the program, Peoplefirst Developments will be reimbursed $7.8 million once the project is completed.
Watch: Calgary announces more office conversion projects
The total cost of the conversion is budgeted to cost $38 million.
Maxim Olshevsky, managing director of Peoplefirst Developments, says the building will have suites for lower income Calgarians.
“Forty per cent of the units will be 20 per cent below market rent in this building, and this the initiative we are planning to carry on with all our other developmennts and we’re on track for that,” he said.
Plus, every suite in the building has a newly-added balcony.
“It’s not something that we couldn’t overcome. So we figured out how to properly recess on the existing concrete to ensure the thermal break remains as is,” said Olshevsky.
“We are quite pleased with the balconies you can see in these suites, and every single suite in this building has a balcony.”
