Former YWCA land in downtown Calgary for sale again

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A rare plot of prime real estate in Calgary’s downtown is for sale.

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The former site of the YWCA was originally sold for $45 million in 2015 to Toronto firm Great Gulf with the intention to build a multi-purpose downtown community. Those plans never came to fruition and the entire city block was listed again last week.

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“It is truly unprecedented to have an entire city block of this scale in downtown, and it will be very exciting to see who the ultimate buyer is and how they envision this project,” said Mark Goodman, principal of Goodman Commercial Inc. of Vancouver, who was tapped to sell the parcel.

The sale price of the land at 320 5th Ave. SE, which still has the now-vacant former YWCA building on it, is not being publicly announced by Great Gulf, but Goodman said there has been a lot of interest in the land, mostly from Vancouver investors.

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The land has been zoned for a wide range of mixed-use projects. It would allow for a density of 20 times the 123,275 square feet of space, meaning there is a maximum of 2,465,500 square feet of buildable space.

Goodman said the land is ideal for some form of mixed-use community, with commercial at grade and residential above and potentially a hotel. He noted Vancouver has had success with these types of projects, but more investors are looking to markets like Calgary where there is less red tape and fewer development challenges.

Goodman said investors are generally willing to wait out a downturn. Calgary’s downtown has been working for years to find a solution to high office vacancy rates, which has led the nation since 2015 when oil companies began to exit the market.

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Vacancy has been hovering around 30 per cent for the past few years and the city and other organizations have been searching for answers to revitalization, which includes repurposing older, empty towers for residential. The massive Stephen Avenue Quarter mixed-use project is also currently in the consultation phase.

Mark Garner, executive director of the Calgary Downtown Association, said there is still considerable demand for housing in the core, even with several projects in the pipeline.

“Based on what we need and the investments we’ve made specifically in and around that area with the Riverwalk, I think it’s a perfect time for increased residential in that location,” he said. “It really is a great opportunity for that block to be rejuvenated.”

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The city block is just outside the East Village and across the street from the Bow Valley College north campus, between 3rd Street SE and Macleod Trail. It has easy access to a number of amenities, including the CTrain, Central Library, museums, restaurants, grocery store, river walking trails and other attractions, including the Calgary Stampede grounds.

It is an extremely walkable area, and a mixed-use community fits an urbanist vision for the downtown revitalization.

Kate Thompson, president and CEO of Calgary Municipal Land Corp., said with the net migration that has taken place in the past year and is being forecasted into the future, these projects have become that much more important.

“It’s an active area, there’s a lot of happening in the area, so it has a lot of potential,” she said. “What it signals to me is that there’s a pipeline of land and it’s good to see that there’s activity happening on that.”

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Twitter: @JoshAldrich03

Note: The story has been corrected for the proper mount of buildable space for the project.