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Whether young or old, the people who will call home a 465-square-foot one-bedroom or a 625-square foot two-bedroom inner-city condo are living in a piece of Calgary history.

When city council in notoriously car-loving Calgary unanimously approved the 15-storey parking-free condo tower in May 2015, it was a first for the city.

Under normal Calgary rules, a tower of N3’s size would require about 100 parking stalls and Starkman estimated because of the water table needs in the area, each would have cost $50,000.

The absence of underground parking stalls allowed Knightsbridge to finish the development quicker than a typical build and offer a lower price point.

Starkman said he was first inspired to build a car-less condo after offering his daughter an old car while she was studying at Dalhousie University.

“She said, ‘A Car? What am I going to do with a car,'” he recalled. “(She said,) ‘I’ve got a transit pass, a bike and I can walk.'”

The conversation spurred baby boomer Starkman to hire marketers who talked to young Calgarians in downtown coffee shops. They found 30 per cent of the people surveyed lacked drivers licenses and 50 per cent didn’t own a vehicle.

With all but 20 units sold, Starkman said there’s clearly an appetite for the no-car concept in Calgary.

“I’m not saying this no parking should take over the world in Calgary,” he said.

“We’re not downtown Toronto or London, but it seems to me there was a bit of a gap in the marketplace that nobody was really approaching.”