Long-delayed office space in Quarry Park switching to residential

The owner of a seven hectare site in Quarry Park has a new plan for its future.

Construction started on the site a decade ago with several office buildings approved for a single client.

However, when Calgary's economic boom at the time went bust, construction was halted in 2015. Only a large underground parkade and nine concrete elevator cores — each rising five storeys in the air — were completed.

The silent sentinels have stood fenced off since then.

A suburban office recovery still hasn't materialized. A couple of years ago, Remington hired a consultant to take another look at the site as a candidate for possible residential development. 

The company's representatives were before city council this week, seeking a land use change.

Parkade a key element

The president of the firm B&A, Kathy Oberg, spoke to council on Remington's behalf. 

She said the company needed to establish two things before deciding how much residential development could be supported at the site.

"Firstly, the location and sizes of the existing elevator cores needed to work for residential floor-plates and the building code and secondly, the structural capacity of the existing parkade needed to be assessed for a residential floor-plate and it was determined that it would be able to support eight floors of residential," said Oberg.

With that in mind, she said the plan is to construct three buildings of eight storeys each above the parkade. Two thirteen-storey buildings and two buildings of four storeys each would follow in subsequent phases.

In total, it estimates there could be up to 1,400 new residential units built.

Close to future LRT

All of the buildings would include an underground connection to the parkade which has a 950 stall capacity.

And the site is a couple of hundred metres away from the future Quarry Park LRT station on the Green Line.

City council gave the land use change unanimous approval at its meeting this week.

The area's city councillor, Ward 11's Kourtney Penner, said she's pleased there will be construction resuming at the site and that it will now be a residential project.

"I'm really excited to see the pivot that Remington has made on this land in converting it to residential," said Penner.

"I think it really speaks to the strength of the area and what Green Line is driving in terms of investment into housing along the line."

As well, she said increasing the area's population in coming years will be a boost for local businesses that are already well established in Quarry Park.

Remington plans to seek a development permit later this year and the goal is to complete construction on the first phase within two years.

At this time, there's no estimate on how long it will take to reach full build out.