High-rise farms to save Calgary’s office real estate sector

Added on 28 March 2023

Tags

High-rise farms to save Calgary’s office real estate sector

In downtown Calgary, where owners of office buildings must contend with North America’s highest vacancy rate – according to CBRE, one of every three offices is empty – a local landlord has welcomed a tenant with a growing business: indoor farming.

Aspen Properties has rented out three floors of an office building at its Calgary Tower Centre to vertical indoor farming startup Agriplay Ventures Inc.

So far, one of those floors has been outfitted with Agriplay’s custom, modular growth system, which, by mid-April, should be sprouting fruits and vegetables in quantities hundreds of times the volume of a same-size conventional farm. The company plans to fully convert all three floors to farms by the end of the year.

An innovative way to solve vacancy issues, Agriplay’s indoor farm is “exciting, interesting,” and “a welcome addition to our portfolio,” says Rob Blackwall, Aspen’s chief operating officer. “[Contributing] to better food security for the surrounding area is very complimentary to [our] ESG goals.”