Article content

The entry of a New York City-based co-working company into the Calgary market helped drive down the downtown office vacancy rate in the first half of 2019.

According to commercial real estate services firm Avison Young, Calgary’s downtown office vacancy rate was 24.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2019, down from 25.3 per cent in the first quarter and 26 per cent 12 months earlier. Research manager Susan Thompson said the downtown office market recorded 446,000 square feet of positive office absorption in the first half of 2019, more than for all of 2018 combined. Calgary’s overall office market has also seen four consecutive quarters of positive absorption — something that has not happened since 2014.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Calgary's downtown office market shows signs of improvement as WeWork moves in Back to video

“This is a positive trend,” Thompson said in an interview. “Nobody’s going to tell you 24 per cent vacancy is amazing — we’ve still got a long way to go. But I like the general trend.”

The uptick in activity in the downtown market in the first half of the year is directly related to three new leases that amounted to more than 50 per cent of the positive absorption in the core in the second quarter. Engineering firm Golder Associates relocated from the northeast into Stephen Avenue Place and New York-based co-working company WeWork signed two leases in The Edison building and Stephen Avenue Place, where it will occupy 76,000 square feet and 66,000 square feet respectively.