JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Welcome to Calgary Conversations, a podcast of the City of Calgary, where we aim to have frank conversations with City leaders about the issues and topics impacting Calgarians.

My name is Jose Rodriguez. I am leader of media relations and employee communications at The City. I'm happy to be your host.

Welcome back to Calgary Conversations, a podcast of the City of Calgary. As always, we value your feedback. So please get a hold of us at CalgaryConversations@calgary.ca. For today's show, I'm pretty excited. We get to talk about downtown revitalization, downtown rebuilding and we have a couple of special guests.

Today we have Thom Mahler with the City of Calgary Downtown Strategies team, our director there, and we have our CEO and President of the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, Kate Thompson.

Welcome.

KATE THOMPSON

Thanks so much.

THOM MAHLER

Thank you.

KATE THOMPSON

Great to be here.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

You two have a very important role when it comes to city building, and each of your roles is different, yet we're going towards one goal. Maybe we can talk about your specific part in building the future of our city. We’ll start with Thom.

THOM MAHLER

So, the way I would classify my role in downtown is that I'm an enabler within City Administration, representing our City Council. Our City Council has decided that downtown revitalization is a key priority of Council and by extension, our citizenry, to do whatever we can to get our downtown really vibrant, coming out of not only the energy downturn of 2014, but also coming out of the pandemic.

And so, I'm here to represent Council's image and vision for downtown, and to work across corporate, within the City of Calgary organization, but also with all of our external partners to do what we can to have the most vital and vibrant downtown we can.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And, Kate, that triggers your work.

KATE THOMPSON

Absolutely. I mean, Council decided in 2007 that the East Village needed a different take. And so out of that was born Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC). So, we've been operating for about 17 years and our first focus was what can we do with downtown, with East Village.

So, we started with East Village, and you can see the fruits of the labour there. You know, we started with Riverwalk. Get people into the area. Lots of public art, lots of rework in terms of landscaping, everything else. And then it started to grow into the culture and entertainment district, started to build some of Calgary's landmarks, the new Central library and now just opened the BMO Convention Centre expansion.

So, it was all born out of this idea of how do you attract people and bring vibrancy back? You know, listening to Thom talk, it's all connected in terms of the approach to rethinking our downtown.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Vibrancy is an interesting word. I think it's maybe different for different people.

My own example, when I'm at a city that I've never been to before, I like to get out of my hotel and walk. Just walk around and take a look at the coffee shops, the public art, just what makes this place neat. Is that kind of how you vision going forward?

KATE THOMPSON

Yeah, I mean, I think when I'm looking at vibrancy and when CMLC’s looking at it, we talk about it with people. You know, do people have a reason to come down and are they exploring and engaging in their city? That creates — in and of itself — vibrancy. So, it gives to what you're talking about. You know, walks in an urban centre can be really long or feel very short and it's all, I think, dependent on vibrancy.

We've all been to the cities that are excellent, and you don't even know that you've walked for a half an hour. Then you've been through some areas that feel like they take forever, and it's been a ten-minute walk. Is there something to see? Is there great retail or is there great coffee shops? Is there some cool public art? Is there something happening on the street that makes that walk enjoyable?

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Thom what about you, what does vibrancy mean to you?

THOM MAHLER

Well, I like the way you started off by saying, you know, vibrancy looks different for different people. And so, if I was going to define vibrancy, is that Calgary, in all its diversity, as well as tourists and visitors to our city, all can find something to do of interest to them downtown. Whether that's living downtown, whether that's shopping downtown, going to a convention, whether going to an event.

But the more of those things that you have going on, and the more diversity of people that you have downtown. We have older people, you have young people, you have different ethnic groups — Calgary in all its diversity.

And then when you come down, when somebody comes downtown or visits our downtown, they go, ‘oh, there's a lot going on here. I feel part of this because it's so diverse’. I think it's really a reaction to what our city was, which is a real monoculture of office workers.

When we started doing the downtown plan, a lot of young Calgarians would say, ‘downtown is where my mom and dad work’. They had never been downtown. People also ask me, well, what does success look like success? Success looks like a teenager in suburban Calgary coming downtown and just feeling it. I belong here. There's something for me to do. So that's how I would categorize vibrancy for the average Calgarian.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So, you did mention living downtown.

It's hard to have a conversation with you, Thom, without talking about the office to residential conversion, which has been featured I think everything from the Wall Street Journal to papers overseas — a real success story.

So, in a nutshell, encapsulate what that program is for us.

THOM MAHLER

The office conversion program really stemmed from the fact that we had a surplus amount of office. We had about a 32 per cent vacancy rate, and our objective was to bring that vacancy rate down. And so, we talked about if we could remove 6 million square feet, let’s start with that, that would bring vacancy rates down enough that it would start to return property values to sense of normalcy and start to pick back up.

So, the program was: what reuses could we do in those spaces? Office to residential was one that was very popular, because it provided these other revitalization benefits. And that was really the genesis of it. It was to remove office and find a vibrant use that could replace that office space. I mean, it's a really interesting program because it started off being less about residential and more about being that we have too much office. So, at early stages we talked about demolition and we talked about converting it to hotels, urban agriculture, mini storage.

And then what changed for us was really when we got a number that worked in the conversion program, it was $75 per square foot, and it became something that people could latch on to. The other thing that happened was residential demand grew in our city. Our city started to grow again, and it's really changed the nature of what that program was. And it really became a focus of residential. And so that's where it's gone, the demand for residential far exceeds our supply. So, the more we could bring those projects on, the quicker that they could actually deliver units to the market.

It takes less time to convert an office building than it does to build a new multi-residential development from the ground up. And so that's really been its success. The other success is that it's brought with it more people and it brings people into parts of our downtown that were largely office oriented. And now we've had the first people starting to move into the first project and you will see over the next few years, you'll start to see a change at street level of who's living in the neighborhood.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I think we've had 13 happen so far that have been funded.

THOM MAHLER

We have 11 currently.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Don’t let me do math. Don't ever let me do math.

THOM MAHLER

I can get you the exact numbers, but yeah there's actually 11 that have been approved under our program. There was a couple of other projects that happened outside of the program, which included the Barron Building and Neoma at the Home Space, which was our first office conversion in the downtown core of Calgary. So, we sometimes include those but overall if we look at our pipeline of projects that we have under our current funding, we're hoping to get almost 2300 residential units within the downtown core.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And by when would that happen?

THOM MAHLER

Well, it depends on when the builders come through, but it would certainly be in the next three to four years.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Nice. And some exciting stuff in your world Kate, you talked about the BMO Centre, the entertainment district and all that will encompass. In the middle of that is also the event centre. What is it going to look like ten years from now, if I go walking down, what is it called? Olympic Way?

KATE THOMPSON

Stampede Trail. It was fourth street, it was Olympic Way, and now Stampede Trail.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

If I walk down Stampede Trail, am I going to recognize it ten years from now?

KATE THOMPSON

Well, what's really interesting is when we were doing the opening a couple weeks ago for the BMO Centre, people who know Calgary and have been to Stampede for years and have lived here or even come down to that area about five years ago, it looks completely different today. And add another five years and it will look completely different again. And so, in city building terms, that's crazy. That's a really, really fast turnaround of a multi-acre site and multiple sites to have it be pretty much unrecognizable.

So, when you're looking at pictures of what the BMO Centre looked like before, you have the plus 15 with the yellow awning and you have the corral, and then do a before-and-after and you have the convention centre that's there today. It's not anything like it was. And then you add in and layer and all the infrastructure, the 17 Avenue extension, the new LRT and Stampede Trail, now to connect.

You're right, in about five years’ time, when you're standing and walking through that district, it's not going to feel like it did in 2020 at all.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So, as you were mentioning, with these new builds also comes new infrastructure.

So, for somebody who's taking a look at, for instance, the LRT station right there by the new convention centre, what other sort of goodies do we get around the things we're building?

KATE THOMPSON

Right, I mean, you can't just build like that. You can't just build the goodies, you know, we could talk about them and build these anchors. It's not just about the anchors. The connective pieces have to work. You have to be able to walk, cycle, take a train, park — move around the areas for these buildings to work and these anchors.

So, the convention centre is really a massive project. It's a million square foot building. I would say that the infrastructure around it might be more impactful. And it's hard to say when you stand at the base of the convention centre and look up and see kind of its scale. But that 17th Avenue extension — bringing downtown into Stampede Park, having people walk at grade — that was the original entry gate for Stampede up until the ‘80s when the red line was put there. And now it's kind of reestablishing that connection, and it's really going to change how people move around the city.

And Calgarians probably remember what it felt like when the fourth Street underpass went in, which kind of reconnected East Village to north-south, and then all of the other infrastructure around there. I think this will be the same, if not bigger, type of impact. And along with that infrastructure that you talked about, the LRT, the new LRT station. It's not only new, it's completely redone in terms of how you access it from at grade, from the sidewalk. There's no longer that spiral staircase on the other side of Macleod that people would remember. You'll just move differently and interact with the whole part of downtown differently.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And with the event centre would come more of those infrastructure upgrades?

KATE THOMPSON

Yeah, so, I mean we've been under construction for about four years on the BMO Centre and all the surrounding infrastructure, and now the event centre will be starting their construction for a few years’ time, and all the infrastructure in and around there to support it. So, all the confusion and all the construction in and around is going to carry on. But at the end, when it's all built, you'll start being able to access it.

I think one thing to note is that we are trying to look — when CMLC was building a lot of the infrastructure around that area — we're trying to look, is there a comparison precedent project in North America that has this much construction happening with an active and open area? Because you know, the Saddledome was open, it hosts all the games. The BMO was open through construction, all the grads, all the conventions. So, we had to do the construction. We had to make change, but we have to do it with all of these people coming in and out.

And we struggled actually to find a precedent of that scale. And we joked about it, kind of like building an Olympic village while hosting an Olympics. And oh, also pausing for the greatest outdoor show on earth every construction season. So, it's a really dynamic, fluid area to build in, but really, really important.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Now, before we got on air here, I was talking to both of you about just how cool your jobs are. Well, you kind of, you've got a Lego set, right?

KATE THOMPSON

Totally.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

The world’s greatest Lego set.

KATE THOMPSON

It’s true.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And so, we talk a little bit about, you know, how cool it is to help shape the city of the future.

THOM MAHLER

While from my perspective, she has the Lego set, which is pretty exciting.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

What do you have, Thom?

THOM MAHLER

Maybe I have the Hollywood Squares. I have people, right?

I have a network of amazing people, who are who are passionate about our downtown being great. That includes people that live downtown but it also includes a lot of our major civic partners. So, we have Arts Commons, we have the Glenbow Museum, we have Contemporary Calgary, we have the library, we have the TELUS Convention Centre, we have our own services, Calgary Transit, Calgary Parks. You bring all those people together and there is very rarely a time when people don't get excited and aren't passionate about getting there. And I think one of the reasons that we're so successful right now is people can see the momentum of the city.

If you were to ask us — I used to do this in 2003 when things weren't really moving — it was a lot more negative, people were more cynical, ‘this isn't going to happen’. That's all changed because we've had success. And, you know, credit to CMLC and the work they've done in East Village is showing you can take a very challenged area and you can make it something really special. And people believe in themselves as a community, and that's what makes my job exciting because I get to talk to all these people, and they share their vision, and they share their excitement. My role is to just kind of try and pull people together and periodically we go to our City Council and we go to other orders of government and share that vision and try and get some support so that we can keep doing the work that we're doing.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I can't believe I just heard that things were more negative prior to social media taking off.

THOM MAHLER

Maybe in a smaller circle. I think that's hugely important for cities. I listen to this podcast called the DNA of cities, and it talks about City’s endowed traits — sort of physical endowed traits — but also the inherited traits and, not to use a big word, but the epigenetic traits of a city. And Calgary has a very specific one, and that is its sense of volunteerism and its sense of community. This has been proven out many times when The City did brand work, that is a thing. It is actually saying people come to Calgary from other cities and they go, ‘wow, like, you guys really get along. You guys really worked together. We could never do that here’.

And that's infectious. It's infectious when you have your Chamber of Commerce sitting with your social enterprises and they're saying the same things and we're having results. And so, I think that's what Calgarians should be really excited about, is you’re living and growing up in a city now that has definitely found its groove I would say, for this next generation, of what we can be and that makes my job super exciting.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And carried forward its values as, as you just mentioned.

THOM MAHLER

Exactly.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So, Kate, tell us about your Lego set.

KATE THOMPSON

My Lego set. Well, I've always loved Lego.

We were talking and I do feel like I have one of the best jobs and I feel very fortunate to be doing what I get to do in the city and be able to have the impact that you have. You don't often have that ability in a role or a job where you can affect one thing, but this feels bigger, that we can start really shaping our city in a meaningful way.

I always think it's a great proof point when you talk to people and they say, ‘oh yeah, I brought my aunt or uncle who are visiting down to East Village’, and my whole team kind of gets a sense of pride out of that, because we know that we got to try something different and, prove it out and make mistakes too. There's always mistakes that are happening, everybody makes mistakes, but learn from them and improve them and kind of raise the bar.

One of my greatest parts of my Lego set is probably just watching groups of students walk through the library. And just see them, you know, they're goofing off, they're not really listening to their teacher, but they're all kind of looking up and they're looking around. And what the power of normalizing great designing young minds feels very cool. It feels like a privilege, not only kind of on the city-shaping scale, but that they all think that's absolutely what a library should look like. That they've been exposed to something like that in our city, just raises the level for everyone in terms of what they expect and kind of how they act in a space. It's pretty special to watch.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

It is, and the library is absolutely beautiful as we all know.

KATE THOMPSON

The team did an amazing job.

THOM MAHLER

If I can just pick up a bit on that too, because one of the people I forgot to mention in my network of great people is our private real estate sector. And I think one of the things that we've seen change in the last 20 years is their desire to deliver a great product. And so, the more The City is invested in our public infrastructure, the more they're inclined to say, ‘well, we want to be part of that’. So, we're seeing that that level of quality and that desire to be a part of the network. It's not just, ‘I do my project and I get out’, it’s ‘I want to be part of this network of great things that are happening’.

That just kind of feeds on itself and people's expectations when they come downtown now, is that you're going to see some cool, new stuff. I think that's the other thing that's really exciting. It's not just what The City and government partners are doing, it’s also what the private sector is doing.

KATE THOMPSON

Yeah, we're all building and pushing each other together. And that's when you know the ecosystem is working. That everyone's kind of saying the city is worth it and it's worth it to invest in. And that's what I hear from a lot of outside developers who come to our city, you know, especially if they've come five years ago and they've come now. They said, ‘well, you know, you guys are really investing in yourselves in a meaningful way consistently and publicly and privately’.

So, you see it.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And that makes them want to invest in us.

KATE THOMPSON

Exactly.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Right. So, one of the things that is coming upon your plate is Olympic Plaza.

KATE THOMPSON

You bet.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

If you can tell us a little bit about that.

KATE THOMPSON

That’s what I often describe as kind of our living room of our city and the heart. And so, no expectations there, everyone's living room looks different, and everyone has a different expectation.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I'm old enough to remember standing in Olympic Plaza when they had the lasers from the roofs, and they actually presented the medal ceremony.

KATE THOMPSON

There are so many people who've told us great stories like that. They're like, ‘that was the first time I was out as a teen alone’.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I took the CTrain by myself.

KATE THOMPSON

It’s seminal in a lot of people's history and minds about how they use the city and that's a big responsibility for us when we're looking at it. But the nice thing is that people are sharing those stories and wanting to talk to us about how they use it today, how they either went down at the laser time and experienced it.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Lasers were a big deal back then.

KATE THOMPSON

Big deal, big deal.

THOM MAHLER

They still are.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

That was 1988.

KATE THOMPSON

Yeah, I still like a good laser.

So, the question is, what do you do with that space and how do you honour that legacy? Understand the use and understand also, when you're designing in 2024 how do you design for 2050 to make sure that it's still relevant and usable. And that's a big challenge, the team is excellent. I've seen some early ideas of the design and I think they're trying to incorporate all of that feedback, all of that nostalgia, all of that actual functional use.

It can't just be a pretty place. It's got to be a really functional, hardworking space for many different users and also inspire a little bit of wonder and delight. And that's kind of what we've been able to do in all of our projects. A little bit of surprise, a little bit of curiosity. We’re talking about vibrancy.

How do you attract people to come down? What is there to see? And what's interesting is we have a great team working on it, looking at the programing too, not just the physical attributes. What do the pavers look like and what do the edges look like? But how does it work when it's busy and, you know, really hard functioning for thousands of people down there? And then how does it work on just a normal Tuesday afternoon? And so, if we can crack that code, and help understand the success in both of those notes, I think we'll have done something great for our city.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And it's also incorporated into the Arts Commons expansion because it goes right around it.

KATE THOMPSON

Absolutely. So, Arts Commons, we just released the design this spring on the first phase, which is the 1000-seat theatre and a 200-seat studio theatre, and it's been really important. We wanted both teams to be working in design at the same time, so they can start influencing each other and start kind of saying, what about this? And have you thought of this? And what about this edge? Because if it was just one building, just kind of landing on Olympic Plaza, not interacting, I think we wouldn't be as successful.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

This is just a simpleton take on this because I'm not a designer architect or anything like that, but it seems to me, what you're telling me, is that you want to draw a string and connect all of these different parts of the city into one experience.

KATE THOMPSON

It's a great analogy, it’s these notes, and how do you connect between the notes? It's that great walk in a great city, you know, what are the streetscapes like? What are what are those places in between? Because they're as important as the building itself or as the final note. And then you should be able to see, I think the thinking of Arts Commons and Olympic Plaza, you look down the street and you see Glenbow and you're like, what's that? Oh, looks great. And then what's further down and what can I see and where can they go? That's a great city, is that it has many things to offer.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So, it's a feeling. Is it a feeling Thom?

THOM MAHLER

It is a feeling, and I was thinking as Kate was talking. One of the things that makes cities great is that the public infrastructure and the public spaces that are free to attend, they give a sense of dignity and a sense of belonging to everybody in the city. And that includes everybody who's currently downtown and everybody we hope to attract downtown.

And so those investments in our public spaces — like our streets, like our parks — that just helps connect together what are maybe more private or more purpose driven things like a museum, or an office building. But having said that, one of the other themes that you see, is in the nature of programing of some of our partners, include this element of free. The Glenbow Museum is making a big portion of their programing for free. The whole idea behind Olympic Plaza is that there's going to be free events, not just a not just a park where you can come and sit. Which it will be that, but also there will be programing there that a citizen can come to experience and that to me is the ultimate success. Because if I don't have a lot of money, even as a tourist or as a resident, there's still a lot of places where I can gain a sense of belonging and there are beautiful spaces to be in.

And I think our downtown — I'll be blunt — it suffered from that. We had lots of spaces that were not pleasant to be in, and over time, we've invested. Our city has done a really good job, like with some of our seventh avenue refurbishment of our LRT stations. They've all created a sense of dignity and a sense of belonging for Calgarians. That's a tall order for designers to do — our infrastructure teams and Kate’s teams, but I think we're getting there. It's becoming a part of what we think about, and it just becomes second nature to what we do.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Very cool. Now, we talked about, a little bit about your funding and where it comes from. Community Revitalization Levies.

KATE THOMPSON

Well done. Good job.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I guess that is how we funded the East Village back in 2007, and is the levy still on?

KATE THOMPSON

Absolutely, until 2047.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Maybe you can explain how that funding works to build these big mega projects?

KATE THOMPSON

Yeah. So, you're right, it started in 2007. And just the Coles notes of Community Revitalization Levy, which is CRL, which is based on a tax increment financing, which is used widely in the states, TIF. But of course, when it came to Alberta, the word tax didn't want to be included. So, we don't say it. So, it's a CRL and it's been established in the Rivers District.

It's a 504-acre area on the east side of downtown. That's the area CMLC oversees. That includes Calgary Stampede area, culture and entertainment area, and East Village. And what was the decision in 2007 was to freeze the taxes that went to, at that time, to the municipal government and the provincial government. Freeze them at the 2007 level. And then CMLC's role and job was to borrow against future increase of property value that we could attract. And through our changes, reinvest it into the district and start building out the district.

So, what we've been able to do, because the value of the land was fairly low when we started, and because we started in 2007 and we've seen an increase in that value, is we've been able to conservatively estimate what we'll be getting at the end of a 40-year period and take those funds and reinvest them into some of these projects. So, there's a lot to digest but that's the essence of the CRL.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I thought that was a great explanation for a guy who struggles with math. That was a great explanation.

KATE THOMPSON

Well, thanks. So that 2047 period, we were actually originally a 20-year period, and we were extended for another 20 years. And the bulk of that extension was to go to the $333 million going into the BMO Centre expansion. But what we were also able to do was put money into — 165 into — the Arts Commons project and a few other of the infrastructure pieces around the area. So, a really interesting tool for cities to use in revitalizing areas that wouldn't otherwise be revitalized. And the idea behind it is take land that's not really doing much for you. In 2007, The City and the province weren't making a lot of money from East Village and the surrounding areas and lay in this mechanism, this funding mechanism, to bring about change, to remove barriers, allow developers to say, ‘oh, well, you've raised the roads, you've cleaned up the environmental contamination, now we're going to invest’.

So, in the last few years, we've, invested over $400 million in the area and we've attracted over $3.3 billion in private investment. So, taking land that would have just kind of taken a steady state for years and really catalyzed it.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Well, I love that, and it leads me right to Thom. Because I think on the office conversion, it's a $3 for every dollar we put in, am I right?

THOM MAHLER

Correct. Yeah. So far, we've it's about a 3 to 1 ratio. So, when the city invests in those projects, you get three times private investment. So that’s investment that wouldn't have happened in our downtown core without that initial incentive.

KATE THOMPSON

It's the same. It's a similar kind of underpinning of removing barriers. So, people invest their own money.

THOM MAHLER

And I wanted to — I don't know if you can ask the question later on — but one of the things that was so important to the notion of tax increment financing was that cities recognized they have an asset that's undervalued. That they believe, with some government investment, they can increase that value of that asset. And why that's important for every Calgarian is because we can provide a higher level of service that we provide across the city. It’s dependent on the revenue sources that we have. Downtown has the biggest taxpayers, they tend to be the corporate interests. And so, when the oil price dropped in 2014, we lost a total number of $16 billion in value. And that was meant to provide the same level of service to Calgarians for your grass mowing in your neighborhood or the frequency of garbage pickup, whatever it might be, landfill hours is another good one I like to throw around. It depends on good valuation of the downtown core, so we don't have to increase taxes elsewhere. And that proposition, when you're a city that was as blessed as Calgary to have a high value downtown, which we did, now investing in ourselves, we're seeing that actually makes total sense because the private sector believes that too. And so that strategy has been proven out through the Rivers District and we continue to carry it on through the rest of the downtown as well.

KATE THOMPSON

And it only works — sorry just jump to in — it only works when that public-private combination is happening. If it's just public, then you're waiting for private. It’s when the public does enough to incent the private to say, ‘oh, I see it, I see the value’, and then they start running with it. And that's success that we can step backwards if we need to.

THOM MAHLER

And when it comes to offices, like we were blessed with the oil and gas industry that was quite happy to pay high lease rates for their office space. When you lose that kind of a tenant, now you have to make your downtown attractive to everybody else to pay more rent. And so that's the other thing we're watching, is the more we invest in ourselves, the more people want to be downtown, businesses see it as a great place to have employees to grow their business. They pay more for rent as vacancies go down and our values go up, and then as that value goes up that benefits Calgarians across the city.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Kate, we're a pretty young city. How does that factor into everything that's happening here in Calgary?

KATE THOMPSON

The only thing I think for Calgary in its story, is we're young, and I think we're a really young city in comparison to cities out east in Canada or even Europe or others. So, I think if we're a little less hard on ourselves and a little bit more celebratory about what we have been able to do over our short history. If we've done this much today, I just can only imagine what the ingenuity of this group of people is going to carry out in the future. Yeah, really an exciting time to be in such a young city.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Now, I know this is neither of your departments, but we do have a resurgence of businesses coming back to downtown in the form of the tech sector. What role does that play in some of the work that you're doing, Thom?

THOM MAHLER

Well for us, our strategy actually started when we started working on this back in 2017. I think it was actually Calgary Economic Development that stepped up to the plate and said downtown is important for our economy. At the time, I remember having many discussions about, you know, how do we create a tech ecosystem within downtown Calgary? And over the years that's just become a closer relationship.

And so, it's a great gauge for our success when we see success in — I won’t just say tech, I'll just say and emerging industries. Whether they're cultural industries or whether they're more digital-based industries, that's a great measure of success. That you're not just serving the legacy industry, although we still do that too, because it feeds off each other. But I think that's where it does feed into what I do, is those amenities and those services. And that's the level of safety, the level of cleanliness in the downtown. It all helps support a city trying to pivot its economy from one thing to another, and we're competing with cities.

Typically, tech industries are located in cities with very high quality of life and so that's who you're competing against. And so, it's a very symbiotic relationship between our downtown revitalization and our overall community economic strategy.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Very cool. So, it's 2034, the three of us are taking a walk through downtown. What's the biggest difference that you feel or the experience you're sensing, knowing what you know?

KATE THOMPSON

I think you're going to want to do it again and again. If everything is going the way and the trajectory is what we're doing today, it's an exciting place that you can't just go once. And that's a city that you — if you just go once and then never come back down, then we probably, Thom and I, haven't done our job well.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

You probably missed something.

KATE THOMPSON

We've missed something.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Not you, the person walking.

KATE THOMPSON

We can take it personally. We can go for coffee in ten years and say we missed something. But I think if we've done it right, there's vibrancy and that kind of big, open, global word. But it's coffee shops. It's weird — maybe I like it, maybe I don't — public art that you want to look at and you want to kind of get closer and see if you understand it. And there's something to do. There's either that free concert, there's a great art gallery to jump into. There's something for everyone and it doesn't feel like it's going to all be, you know, Cinderella done at midnight or at 5 p.m. in Calgary, which it used to be. That there's a life after 5 p.m., that's when it's going to be really exciting to somewhere you want to be and it's worthwhile going.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Thom, what are you feeling?

THOM MAHLER

That’s very well said.  I'll use sort of a point of reference from a former office employee who worked in downtown Calgary their whole career. Often, they retire and then never come back downtown. They moved to Kelowna or they get a place outside of Calgary and they don't frequent and this is a very common story that I hear.

What will change is people in 2034, people will come back to do things in downtown Calgary. They won’t just be coming back to see family and friends and to go to the mountains. The downtown experience will be part of that trip, and I think that will be when we're successful. And I'll come back to the vibrancy piece, there will be enough things to do for every type of person that lives in Calgary or that travel to Calgary, and that creates that energy 24/7.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Very cool. Well, I'm going to take in a concert at the event centre. The next day I'm taking a flames game. I'm going to go walk downtown, grab a couple pints at a different place, because I could probably pick a different one.

KATE THOMPSON

Come to Olympic Plaza, it’s going to be amazing.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So, as we wrap this up, any final thoughts Kate?

KATE THOMPSON

You know, I came out here in 99’. I'm from Winnipeg. Thom and I are both from Winnipeg.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So is my wife.

KATE THOMPSON

There you go, good people from Winnipeg.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Good people, good people.

KATE THOMPSON

But I wasn't too sure about the city, in specific it's downtown. It didn't really have that kind of feel, that is somewhere that I wanted to be. And now it does. It definitely has that little unknown quality of, there's something happening here. And to be a part of it has been amazing. Really, really a cool opportunity.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And excitement.

KATE THOMPSON

Very exciting.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Yeah, nice. Thom?

THOM MAHLER

The other thing I would add is that there's our geographic greater downtown boundary that I deal with, which is really kind of the office core north of the tracks and Beltline south. But the other thing that makes downtown really vibrant is when the neighborhoods in and around downtown really start to interact with it. And I think you see that now with Inglewood, Ramsey, Bridgeland, Kensington, hopefully one day Sunalta and West Village. As you kind of grow, that it just becomes so much more diverse with more with more activity. And I really, you can probably tell in my couple of answers I've given, it's not just about the downtown, it's about the experience that the downtown plays in everybody's life and daily life. And I think providing that destination, whether you're kind of commuting through the downtown, through train or through scooters along the river path, whatever that is, it becomes part of people's everyday experience. And that they can't quite put their finger on it, but they feel really good coming downtown.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Very cool stuff. Thank you very much for spending some time with me.

KATE THOMPSON

You bet. Thank you. This is fun.

THOM MAHLER

Great conversation. Thanks, Jose.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Thank you for joining us today. As always, we value your feedback so please reach out to us at CalgaryConversations@calgary.ca and tell us what topics you'd like covered and questions you'd like answered. Until next time, be kind to yourselves. Be kind to each other. And if you see someone without a smile today, give them yours. Take care.