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“It’s where we think the office building market will go. We don’t think the old, corporate, staid office building is the office building of the future,” Hutcheson said. “We’re really trying to create a building for millennials, which resonated perfectly with the RocketSpace guys.”

While RocketSpace will not receive any government subsidies or tax breaks as a result of its decision to choose Calgary, Hutcheson said Aspen Properties has chosen to invest in the company’s business model.

“It’s not novel for a landlord, it happens quite often in the retail space,” Hutcheson said. “But it is quite novel for downtown office space. We will have more of a partner relationship, rather than a landlord-tenant relationship where all we do is collect rent.”

The recruitment of RocketSpace marks the first win for Calgary Economic Development in the Silicon Valleyas it tries to fill some of the 13 million square feet of vacant office space currently available in the city’s downtown core. The organization launched an aggressive sales strategy in 2016 aimed at trying to lure satellite offices and company headquarters to Calgary from other jurisdictions — an initiative supported by $10 million over three years in one-time funding from the City of Calgary, the government of Alberta and the federal government.

Calgary Economic Development president and CEO Mary Moran said the organization has hosted a number of other companies in recent weeks who are “very, very close” to signing leases with downtown landlords. While she cautioned that none of the companies are big, they like the market and the available talent and are excited about Calgary’s future as a technology hub.

“Filling this office space is a long game,” Moran said. “Some people may say, ‘these are just little things,’ but little things can lead to big things. And we know this is where the job growth will come from in the future — it’s going to come from smaller companies with 50 employees or less.”

astephenson@postmedia.com

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