Mayor, trade minister and CED head woo Silicon Valley
Officials hold talks with tech companies with an eye on satellite offices for the city
Calgary’s mayor, the province’s trade minister and the head of Calgary Economic Development are in Silicon Valley as part of an ongoing effort to woo technology companies to Calgary amid record-high downtown office vacancy rates.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Minister of Economic Development and Trade Deron Bilous and Mary Moran, president and CEO of Calgary Economic Development, spent Monday and Tuesday in California meeting with technology firms.
“We’re pitching new companies and we’re also doing some followup calls to some of the companies we met previously,” Moran said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon.
“(We’re) getting very close to some closing of deals with some of the companies we met earlier in the year.”
The latest efforts build on previous trips Moran has made to the U.S., including a visit last month to Silicon Valley and a May 2016 “exploratory trip” to pitch Calgary as a place for Silicon Valley tech companies looking to set up satellite offices.
While the political environment south of the border has spurred some companies and employees to look to leave the U.S., Moran said the Trump presidency is not the primary reason for her most recent trip to San Francisco.
“A lot of the companies, that’s not why we’re coming to meet with them. It’s actually because it makes strategic sense for them to come into the Calgary marketplace,” she said.
Moran said having Nenshi and Bilous with her this time along was beneficial.
“It’s good for the people here that we’re meeting to see the level of commitment that’s coming out of Alberta. Having two orders of government shows them we’re serious,” she said.
In a news release issued last week, the province said Bilous would spend April 2 to 5 in California speaking with high-level executives of U.S. firms looking to extend their network or expand their operations in Alberta.
Bilous said he was “working together with local leaders to show American firms that Alberta is the best place on the continent for business and investment.”
The attempts to brand Calgary as a budding technology hub and attract workers from startup haven Silicon Valley come at a time when recession-weary Calgary is in need of new life.
Nearly one-third of all downtown office space in Calgary is currently empty, an immense change from four years ago when oil prices were strong and the vacancy rate downtown sat at 3.7 per cent.