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Area Overview

Located in the Alberta Foothills, Calgary is known for its entrepreneurial spirit and serves as Canada's energy capital. World-leading oil and gas exploration, production and service companies are based here and, due to its central location between BC and other Prairie provinces, the city provides a regional transportation link to Asia and the U.S. while fostering national and international trade. Calgary’s economy is strong. Its population is diverse, highly educated and expanding rapidly. Calgary also exceeds national averages in income and employment.

In addition to energy and renewable energy, major industries include tourism, transportation and logistics, financial services, agribusiness, film and television and creative industries. Home to 134 FP500 company headquarters, Calgary has the highest head office concentration per capita in Canada and has more small businesses per capita than any other Canadian city.

Consequently, Calgary has a robust commercial real estate market. With over 70 million square feet of office space and over 130 million square feet of industrial space, Calgary is the fourth largest commercial real estate market in Canada. Over the past decade, the office, retail, industrial and investment sectors have all displayed strength while facing a number of global economic challenges. Thanks to the city's wide-open landscape, real estate market expansion is not hindered by geographic barriers like it might be in other locales.

Markets

OFFICE

Calgary has more than 70 million square feet of office space, with a highly-concentrated downtown core.  Due to the strong presence of the energy industry, Calgary has more head offices per capita than any other Canadian city. The downtown office market caters mainly to large users who operate globally and typically require more than 100,000 square feet of space. As a result, cycles tend to be short, with demand for new development coming on strong in upswings while down cycles are met with great resiliency.

RETAIL

Due to the city's high employment and income levels, the retail sector has expanded steadily over the past five to 10 years. In addition to encouraging large national chains to establish more locations, Calgary has attracted increasing numbers of American retailers. Strong demand for high-quality space, particularly in the northwest and southwest, has kept vacancy levels low and enabled rental rates to improve steadily.

INDUSTRIAL

The Calgary Industrial real estate sector is approximately 140 million square feet of total area.  While warehousing and distribution users constitute the majority of the market, the transportation and fabrication sectors also contribute significantly to the overall market.  Calgary’s location has made it a preferred distribution hub for Western Canada.  Although vacancy rates have fluctuated over the last few years, Calgary has historically seen some of the lowest vacancy statistics in Canada. 

INVESTMENT

Institutional investors - notable pension funds, REITS and public companies - are attracted to Calgary in increasingly-large numbers, along with private players who favour Alberta's competitive corporate tax rates and the absence of a provincial sales tax. While institutional investors dominate the office sector, they have also invested billions in the retail, industrial and multi-family markets. Private investors tend to have stronger footholds in the retail, industrial and multi-family sectors.

MULTI-FAMILY

Calgary is an attractive investment alternative for multi-family, when compared to over heated markets such as Toronto and Vancouver. Calgary, with a young, diverse and well-educated population, inner-city apartment living remains a very affordable alternative to those working in the densely business populated Downtown Business District and Beltline areas. Trendy areas such as Mission, Kensington, Inglewood and 17th Avenue are also popular amongst that demographic. Calgary's purpose-built multi-family rental market has been growing steadily for the last four years, after consistently shrinking over the previous two decades due to condominium conversion. Calgary's multi-family investment market has also been growing at a rapid pace, with multi-family construction starts surpassing single-family starting in 2014 - a trend being seen in major metropolitan areas across North America.