A MISSION TO FIND HIS OWN PLACE
‘My life is rooted in this part of town,’ says new homeowner
If there’s anyone deeply embedded in their community, it’s Robert Jobst.
He’s lived in the inner-city neighbourhood of Mission his entire adult life and was even born at the former Holy Cross Hospital.
Now at the age of 51, he’s strengthening his ties to the historic community by purchasing property.
“My life is rooted in this part of town. It was imperative to identify a project here,” says Jobst, a freelance graphic designer who has moved into his new one-bedroom condo in the newly minted Mission 34.
After renting for more than 25 years, enjoying an unfettered life in older character apartments, Jobst says he is excited about life in a modern building.
“There are certainly frustrations living in 80-year-old buildings, like not enough plug-ins. I’m looking forward to living in a place that is brand spanking new and up to code,” he says.
To be fair, the 50-unit building tucked into the hillside on Mission Road is technically in the Parkhill community.
But Jobst still feels a connection to his beloved inner-city neighbourhood and says he’s only a sixor seven-minute walk to the cafes and restaurants on Fourth Street.
Jobst chose the 653-square-foot Roxboro, a one-bedroom one-
bathroom open concept floor plan with flex space for his home office.
At $317,900 plus GST, he says the price was right and the space perfect for his uncluttered lifestyle.
His unit is on the second floor at the rear of the building where it meets the slope of the hill, so it’s at ground level.
“The pizza delivery guy can come up to my front door,” he says with glee.
Occupancy has begun in Mission 34, a joint venture development between boutique condo specialists Assured Communities and Calgary Urban Equities.
The two firms jumped through a gruelling approval process to get it built. It’s the first private developer response to the Mission Road Innovation Project, an initiative from the City of Calgary with several goals in mind.
“Parkhill along Mission Road is predominately single-family. So, the desire was to increase density and create what the city refers to as a neighbourhood activity centre with pockets of retail commercial services,” says Jonathan Allen, president of Calgary Urban Equities. “Mission 34 is where urban meets suburban.”
The location is also part of the city’s Transit Oriented Development plan and is within the 600-metre circle surrounding an LRT Station, which in this case is the 39th Avenue station. Once the site of a church long since demolished, the grade of the hill, which is both north-south and east-west, was complex, says Allen. NORR Architects was tasked with creating residential space, common areas, parking and commercial space.
The three commercial units on the first floor facing Mission Road have 14-foot ceilings, so the adjacent residential units are perfect live/work lofts for enterprising residents. The slope provides private access so that select owners have their own municipal address, including the five courtyard loft units which face the alley.
There are two or three units of each floor plan still available.
Units range in size from 750 square feet to more than 1,000 square feet, and are priced from $350,000 to $475,000, including GST. Condo fees come in at just under $0.40 per square foot.
“Surprisingly, all of them are south or west-facing,” says Allen, noting that there two fully staged show suites in the building showcasing the standard features and unique layout of the four-storey building.