Extreme makeovers: Interest grows in converting empty Edmonton office towers into housing

Edmonton is joining other cities filling empty or old office towers with apartments to revitalize the downtown core.

The process has been going on for decades, and at least 30 such buildings downtown have already been converted from office space to housing units.

Next month, city council's urban planning committee will see a report detailing options for a new incentive program that could help developers convert more underused office towers into residential buildings.

At 24.1 per cent in the second quarter of this year, Edmonton's downtown office vacancy rate was the third highest in Canada, according to real estate service and investment firm CBRE Limited. The national office vacancy rate for the same three-month period was 18.1 per cent.

"As the vacancy rate has ticked up and we've seen the other shoe drop, all of a sudden it's a bigger conversation," said Puneeta McBryan, executive director of the Downtown Business Association.

"How do we eliminate some of our excess office stock? How do we bring new life to these really outdated, irrelevant buildings and increase our residential population?"

In April, Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Andrew Knack suggested the city find ways to encourage developers to consider residential conversions.

Councillors supported Knack's motion to have administration recommend ways to boost the number of residential and/or hotel units downtown, using potential measures such as legislative changes or financial incentives.

He and others, including Ward O-day'min Coun. Anne Stevenson, are hoping for an influx of residents.

Like Knack, Stevenson also wants to see what an incentive program could look like for developers and the community. A report is expected to be presented to council's urban planning committee around the end of October.

"Downtown is a physical place, but the lifeblood is the people," Stevenson said. "When the pandemic hit, people left downtown. The heart of our city stopped beating."

According to the DBA, as many as 30 former office buildings have already found new life as residential space.

Most of those conversions in the city are 15 or more years old including the McLeod and Cambridge buildings and the Liberty Building on Jasper and 105th Street.

Anuj Gupta, president of Anu Developments, is working on an office tower conversion in Oliver, a spot he thinks has a better chance of success than other central Edmonton neighbourhoods.