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EnCana project expands Calgary downtownOil company's new headquarters will widen area for office buildings
By CRAIG SAUNDERS
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Page B14
Special to The Globe and Mail
Fuelled by high oil prices, downtown Calgary is enjoying its biggest growth spurt since the early 1980s. Dominating a pack of new office tower projects is EnCana Corp.'s massive new headquarters, expected to exceed two million square feet.
"The office market in downtown Calgary is just on fire," says Randy Fennessey, president of Colliers International's Calgary office. The vacancy rate for single-A and double-A buildings downtown is a low 3.15 per cent, and rents are rising quickly.
"It's hard to even track," he says of rents, noting that achievable net effective rates -- rent minus any incentives or allowances -- have risen 20 to 25 per cent in the past year.
The EnCana project will likely be the city's largest office complex when its doors open around 2009. It will occupy four parcels of land on the east side of Centre Street between 5th and 7th avenues.
Before it goes up, however, at least four other major projects are likely to be built, and an additional half-dozen are on the drawing boards.
The Homburg-Harris Centre, a redevelopment of the old post office on 9th Avenue, will have two towers totalling about 400,000 square feet.
Centrium Place will have 225,000 square feet, and Opus 8 will have 230,000.
On the north end of downtown, Livingston Place will have two towers with about 420,000 square feet each. It is being developed by Bentall Real Estate for its client, British Columbia Investment Management Corp., a B.C. pension fund.
Livingston Place's location, in the Eau Claire district along the Bow River, is Calgary's next big growth area, with "a lot of great office sites," says Mr. Fennessey, the listing agent for Livingston. Calgary began trying to encourage development there in the early '90s, but just as the landmark Eau Claire Market was built, the oil patch went sour and development came to a halt.
Today, the City of Calgary is focusing its efforts on a part of downtown that has largely been ignored.
Commercial development has traditionally clustered west of Centre Street, leaving the east end between Centre and City Hall embarrassingly quiet.
The EnCana project will go a long way to making this area a vital part of the downtown core, city officials say.
"It will facilitate a new urban feel east of Centre Street," says Gillian Lawrence, the acting manager in charge of capital works for the City of Calgary.
City officials hope that having so prominent a project go up east of Centre Street will eventually lead to growth in the East Village area behind City Hall, as well.
East Village is a notorious dead zone of abandoned industrial land, railway tracks and seedy taverns. It's cut off from downtown by City Hall, which blocks 8th Avenue, the area's natural access route.
The city, which owns roughly half the land in East Village, will spend $70-million to $100-million on infrastructure there, improving flood control, building an underpass to connect the area to the Beltline neighbourhood to the south, and extending the Eau Claire River Walk trail system.
Another draw in the East Village will be the new Urban Campus, a joint project of the University of Calgary and other institutions. The university expects the cluster of buildings to house at least 2,500 of its students by 2010. Bow Valley College is also redeveloping its existing East Village campus and will acquire an adjacent block of land when the old courthouse is demolished.
EnCana made the jump across Centre Street because the site offers easy access and had few restrictions on development, says Craig Reardon, administrative vice-president for EnCana.
"It allows us to build whatever type of complex works best for us," he says.
The building also could be linked to the city's overhead walkway system, which connects downtown office buildings; from its Centre Street site, EnCana could link to the Telus Corp. and Petro-Canada buildings, as well as the city's convention centre. The site was also attractive because it's on the light-rail C-Train line.
EnCana has not decided whether it will build a single tower, which would be the largest in Calgary, or two or three smaller buildings. The development will house more than 3,500 EnCana employees currently working in other structures.
Mr. Reardon says EnCana will bring the company's employees under one roof "to achieve more collaboration and less wasted time walking back and forth." The new structure will also help attract and retain staff, he says.
At two million square feet, the EnCana building's size alone will make it a landmark. Downtown is dominated by Banker's Hall, with 800,000 square feet in each of two towers. EnCana will also dwarf the Petro-Canada and TransCanada Corp. buildings, which both have about one million square feet.
The EnCana project is being managed by Matthews Southwest, a Texas company headed by Jack Matthews, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario's Ivey School of Business. His company recently completed a one-million-square-foot office complex for Bell Mobility Inc. near Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
Because the EnCana project is in the planning stages, few details are available. "The intention is to create a village," says Mr. Matthews. It likely will include features standard in triple-A office buildings, Mr. Reardon says, such as a fitness centre, restaurants and shops.
Despite its prominence, the building is not likely to be a major departure architecturally. "We expect it to be distinctive, but 'unusual' is a scary word to me," Mr. Matthews says.
A lead architect has not yet been selected. A request for proposals was sent to eight "firms of international reputation or of major national reputation here in Canada who have experience in major commercial developments," Mr. Reardon says. That list has since been cut to three firms, and a decision is expected at the end of November.
Including EnCana, the next few years will see five to seven million square feet added to Calgary's office inventory, Mr. Fennessey says. That's the most development since the 1979-84 spurt that resulted in the creation of Calgary's modern downtown core.
In the meantime, demand for office space will ease slightly in 2007, as new towers open, tenants move in and existing space is freed up, Mr. Fennessey says. But it won't ease significantly until 2009, when EnCana and other downtown projects are completed.
Calgary's office growth
A thriving oil and gas economy has led to a downtown building boom.
Livingston Place
Description: Two towers, 21 storeys each
Location: 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street SW.
Size: 836,000 square feet
Estimated completion: June 2007
Opus 8
Description: One tower, 13 storeys
Location: 8th Avenue between 5th and 6th streets SW.
Size: 225,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: January 2007.
Centrium Place
Description: One tower, 15 storeys
Location: 6th Avenue and 3rd Street SW.
Size: 225,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: March, 2007
Homburg-Harris Centre
Description: Two towers, 10 storeys and 20 storeys
Location: 9th Avenue and 2nd Street SW.
Size: 607,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: 2008
Bankers Court
Description: One tower, 15 storeys
Location: 2nd Street SW. between 8th and 9th avenues
Size: 255,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: 2008
SOURCE: COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
By CRAIG SAUNDERS
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 Page B14
Special to The Globe and Mail
Fuelled by high oil prices, downtown Calgary is enjoying its biggest growth spurt since the early 1980s. Dominating a pack of new office tower projects is EnCana Corp.'s massive new headquarters, expected to exceed two million square feet.
"The office market in downtown Calgary is just on fire," says Randy Fennessey, president of Colliers International's Calgary office. The vacancy rate for single-A and double-A buildings downtown is a low 3.15 per cent, and rents are rising quickly.
"It's hard to even track," he says of rents, noting that achievable net effective rates -- rent minus any incentives or allowances -- have risen 20 to 25 per cent in the past year.
The EnCana project will likely be the city's largest office complex when its doors open around 2009. It will occupy four parcels of land on the east side of Centre Street between 5th and 7th avenues.
Before it goes up, however, at least four other major projects are likely to be built, and an additional half-dozen are on the drawing boards.
The Homburg-Harris Centre, a redevelopment of the old post office on 9th Avenue, will have two towers totalling about 400,000 square feet.
Centrium Place will have 225,000 square feet, and Opus 8 will have 230,000.
On the north end of downtown, Livingston Place will have two towers with about 420,000 square feet each. It is being developed by Bentall Real Estate for its client, British Columbia Investment Management Corp., a B.C. pension fund.
Livingston Place's location, in the Eau Claire district along the Bow River, is Calgary's next big growth area, with "a lot of great office sites," says Mr. Fennessey, the listing agent for Livingston. Calgary began trying to encourage development there in the early '90s, but just as the landmark Eau Claire Market was built, the oil patch went sour and development came to a halt.
Today, the City of Calgary is focusing its efforts on a part of downtown that has largely been ignored.
Commercial development has traditionally clustered west of Centre Street, leaving the east end between Centre and City Hall embarrassingly quiet.
The EnCana project will go a long way to making this area a vital part of the downtown core, city officials say.
"It will facilitate a new urban feel east of Centre Street," says Gillian Lawrence, the acting manager in charge of capital works for the City of Calgary.
City officials hope that having so prominent a project go up east of Centre Street will eventually lead to growth in the East Village area behind City Hall, as well.
East Village is a notorious dead zone of abandoned industrial land, railway tracks and seedy taverns. It's cut off from downtown by City Hall, which blocks 8th Avenue, the area's natural access route.
The city, which owns roughly half the land in East Village, will spend $70-million to $100-million on infrastructure there, improving flood control, building an underpass to connect the area to the Beltline neighbourhood to the south, and extending the Eau Claire River Walk trail system.
Another draw in the East Village will be the new Urban Campus, a joint project of the University of Calgary and other institutions. The university expects the cluster of buildings to house at least 2,500 of its students by 2010. Bow Valley College is also redeveloping its existing East Village campus and will acquire an adjacent block of land when the old courthouse is demolished.
EnCana made the jump across Centre Street because the site offers easy access and had few restrictions on development, says Craig Reardon, administrative vice-president for EnCana.
"It allows us to build whatever type of complex works best for us," he says.
The building also could be linked to the city's overhead walkway system, which connects downtown office buildings; from its Centre Street site, EnCana could link to the Telus Corp. and Petro-Canada buildings, as well as the city's convention centre. The site was also attractive because it's on the light-rail C-Train line.
EnCana has not decided whether it will build a single tower, which would be the largest in Calgary, or two or three smaller buildings. The development will house more than 3,500 EnCana employees currently working in other structures.
Mr. Reardon says EnCana will bring the company's employees under one roof "to achieve more collaboration and less wasted time walking back and forth." The new structure will also help attract and retain staff, he says.
At two million square feet, the EnCana building's size alone will make it a landmark. Downtown is dominated by Banker's Hall, with 800,000 square feet in each of two towers. EnCana will also dwarf the Petro-Canada and TransCanada Corp. buildings, which both have about one million square feet.
The EnCana project is being managed by Matthews Southwest, a Texas company headed by Jack Matthews, a graduate of the University of Western Ontario's Ivey School of Business. His company recently completed a one-million-square-foot office complex for Bell Mobility Inc. near Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
Because the EnCana project is in the planning stages, few details are available. "The intention is to create a village," says Mr. Matthews. It likely will include features standard in triple-A office buildings, Mr. Reardon says, such as a fitness centre, restaurants and shops.
Despite its prominence, the building is not likely to be a major departure architecturally. "We expect it to be distinctive, but 'unusual' is a scary word to me," Mr. Matthews says.
A lead architect has not yet been selected. A request for proposals was sent to eight "firms of international reputation or of major national reputation here in Canada who have experience in major commercial developments," Mr. Reardon says. That list has since been cut to three firms, and a decision is expected at the end of November.
Including EnCana, the next few years will see five to seven million square feet added to Calgary's office inventory, Mr. Fennessey says. That's the most development since the 1979-84 spurt that resulted in the creation of Calgary's modern downtown core.
In the meantime, demand for office space will ease slightly in 2007, as new towers open, tenants move in and existing space is freed up, Mr. Fennessey says. But it won't ease significantly until 2009, when EnCana and other downtown projects are completed.
Calgary's office growth
A thriving oil and gas economy has led to a downtown building boom.
Livingston Place
Description: Two towers, 21 storeys each
Location: 3rd Avenue and 2nd Street SW.
Size: 836,000 square feet
Estimated completion: June 2007
Opus 8
Description: One tower, 13 storeys
Location: 8th Avenue between 5th and 6th streets SW.
Size: 225,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: January 2007.
Centrium Place
Description: One tower, 15 storeys
Location: 6th Avenue and 3rd Street SW.
Size: 225,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: March, 2007
Homburg-Harris Centre
Description: Two towers, 10 storeys and 20 storeys
Location: 9th Avenue and 2nd Street SW.
Size: 607,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: 2008
Bankers Court
Description: One tower, 15 storeys
Location: 2nd Street SW. between 8th and 9th avenues
Size: 255,000 square feet
Estimated completion date: 2008
SOURCE: COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL
© Copyright 2005 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
