Qualico Properties Calgary Successfully Backfills the Historic Commercial Area of Builders Park Shortly After Move

Calgary, AB – In central Calgary, Qualico owns a property called Builders Park, which provides a variety of leasing opportunities for businesses looking for office, retail, or showroom space. It was also once home to Qualico’s business units in Calgary up until June 2023.

Qualico has a long history at Builders Park, which started with the company’s purchase of the site in 1956. While plans to create high-rise office buildings at the site never came to fruition, the development was an important springboard for future commercial developments in Calgary and has been the operating quarters for many businesses over the years.

After Qualico Calgary business units moved out of their office spaces in Builders Park in late spring/early summer last year, Qualico Properties Calgary had an important job to do – backfill leases for the 55,000 sq. ft. of space that was left vacant.

Attracting New Tenants

To attract tenants and fill the space, the Qualico Properties team had to get creative, since Builders Park isn’t the typical grocery-anchored commercial space they typically work with. As well, the market for commercial space in the city is competitive. The team expected to be working with a two-year timeframe to fill the space.

However, Jenny Thiessen, Director, Leasing, Qualico Properties Calgary, said establishing and maintaining strong relationships with brokers and tenants led to the team finding tenants for around 13,000 sq. ft. of the available space before Qualico Calgary business units had even moved out of Builders Park.

To drum up interest in the site, Qualico Properties held an open house event at Bolder in Builders Park – a bouldering (indoor rock climbing) space – and invited all brokers working in the area to attend.

“I think it was one of the most important things we could do,” said Jenny. “Not only did it give us facetime with the brokers, but they also had an opportunity to see the available spaces and understand what kinds of things could be done with them. It helped get them excited about the potential that the spaces have.”

Meeting Tenants’ Needs

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With a couple of deals closed very early on in the process, Qualico Properties Calgary then focused on finding suitable tenants for the remaining spaces. The team had a couple of challenges: trying to make potential tenants aware of Builders Park and the space available, and finding tenants who would be willing to take larger spaces to avoid breaking up space and losing rent on some of the square footage.

Jenny said the team had two strategies that she believes helped – being open to figuring out how to make things work for potential tenants and being highly responsive to get the right deal done. By the end of 2023, just six months after Qualico vacated the property, the rest of the available space had been leased.

“We did a lot of listening to what tenants needed,” she said. “We had to work within their budgets and figure out how to be flexible with rents, timelines, and expectations. Could we offer them a tenant improvement allowance so they could work on their space while also adding value to our property? Could they take some extra term? Could we offset their rent on a larger square footage?”

At times, there were multiple potential tenants interested in the same space – even spaces that Jenny thought would be especially hard to lease. But the team didn’t treat those situations any differently than they would have if they’d had just one offer.

“They say time kills deals, and it does,” Jenny said. “If you're slow in responding, they’ll find another place to go because they’ll think you're not that interested in their offer. Especially in a market where there are so many options.”

Jenny pointed to one tenant, an athletic trainer who had some specific needs, as an example where the Qualico Properties Calgary team had to think about how one tenant could potentially impact others.

“We needed to think about if he’s playing music, how does that transfer to the upstairs space?” she said. “What kind of fire rating do we need for this? Is there enough ceiling height for this use? He wanted to put cold pools and treatment rooms in the space. We had to think about how the tenant was going to impact other tenants and even write some specific things into the contract for property management.”

Leveraging Location

In addition to the team’s responsiveness and willingness to work with tenants on meeting their needs, Jenny noted that the location of Builders Park also played into the strong interest in the vacant spaces and the speed at which Qualico Properties was able to fill those spaces.

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“This was something new that the market hadn’t really seen in a while,” she said. “Businesses were looking to move back into the city centre because rent was often less than it would be in suburban areas. There’s been a lot more activity and development around this area in recent years, and so there's more excitement. Restaurants, recreational spaces, access to public transit. It’s bringing more businesses to the area.”

The backfill leased space at Builders Park is now home to a variety of tenants – a fitness business, a manufacturing company, an oil services company, an insurance business, a credit search company, a construction company, and a minors’ soccer association. Qualico Properties strategically staggered the leases for these tenants to ensure the team wouldn’t be dealing with multiple vacancies at any given time.

However, that doesn’t mean the team won’t still be dealing with vacancies from time to time. Jenny shared that a large tenant is now leaving Builders Park and the team has had to work to find a new tenant for the 42,000 sq. ft. that will be left vacant. The site has had a lot of interest, and it likely won’t take long for the space to be filled.

Looking to the Future

Although Qualico business units no longer occupy part of Builders Park, it is still a valuable asset for Qualico Properties. Jenny said she’s excited for what’s to come in the future for Builders Park and the surrounding areas.

“As I watch Calgary grow and change, I’m seeing how the demand for increased density is changing,” she said. “People may want to live on this site, since there's a ton of resources nearby. Long-term, I think there could one day be some kind of multi-family residential on that site. Getting to be part of and having a say in what our city looks like and how it evolves – that's exciting to me.”

With a highly skilled team in the areas of communication, customer service, and creative problem solving, Qualico Properties Calgary will surely continue to find success in leasing space at Builders Park for years to come, adding value to the commercial market and the city of Calgary overall.