Calgary and Denver looking to one another, again, for downtown inspiration

Denver and Calgary are twinning in many respects — perhaps they were separated at birth.

Both have the mountains to the west, both built up around rail, and both have a history of riding the ups and downs of the energy industry. 

But at some point, Denver got off that economic track and uncoupled from that train to focus on a buzzword that's now seeped into Calgary's lexicon: diversification. 

Historically, Calgary has looked to Colorado's capital for inspiration, even sending a delegation to the Mile High City years ago — but, oh, how the tables have turned. 

This week, Denver is in Calgary with a delegation eager to take home some lessons as it looks to revitalize a struggling downtown. 

"We got a head start on dealing with office vacancy in the downtown because we had the seismic shift in the oil and gas sector," said Sheryl McMullen with Calgary's Downtown Strategy team, pointing to the drop in world oil prices in 2014.

It was a seismic shift with cascading consequences.

"We lost about $16 billion dollars of value," McMullen said. 

That tax burden shifted to properties outside of the core, prompting a temporary solution: rebates to non-residential accounts. 

But that was only a Band-Aid fix. McMullen said there needed to be a lasting change. 

"We need to do something different, to invest in ourselves," McMullen said. "That's where the whole notion of office-to-residential conversions for other adaptive reuse was really born."

Revitalization, she points out, is breaking that cycle. As Calgary diversifies and shifts from a primarily oil-and-gas-driven economy, downtown needs to take on a future-proof philosophy, too. Because, she said, the realization in 2017-18 was that the next boom might not come. 

A shift in office culture — the war between working downtown and working from home — has done a number on many city centres. And it's a frustrating conundrum for cities and provinces alike. 

Take Ontario Premier Doug Ford's plea to the feds in March: "It sounds crazy. I'm begging people to go to work for three days — not that they aren't working at home, but it really affects the downtown."