Calgary Herald

Strategic Group partners with CMHA non-profit

- DAVID PARKER David Parker appears regularly in the Herald. Read his columns online at calgaryher­ald.com/ business. He can be reached at 403-830-4622 or by email at info@davidparke­r.ca.

The past year has been a challengin­g one for our real estate industry, particular­ly in the downtown area, but Strategic Group was able to contribute some good news in partnering with a non-profit group and bringing them into what would have been, in the past, financiall­y restrictiv­e office space.

Strategic owns a number of buildings in the downtown core and inner-city and felt the pinch like any other landlord. Laurel Edwards, vice-president, leasing, says it is due to smaller size and by being locally-owned having the ability to make quick, flexible and creative decisions helped it to have a positive absorption in 2017.

One of its buildings is Parallel Centre along 7th Avenue S.W. that has become the new home to the Canadian Mental Health Associatio­n.

A couple of months ago, it made the move to Parallel Centre from Kahanoff Centre, giving CMHA space for its main office, plus adequate classroom space steps away from an LRT station.

The transactio­n became additional­ly meaningful with a direct donation by Strategic to CMHA of a total amount of over $300,000.

Based in Calgary, Strategic Group has become one of Canada’s largest privately held real estate companies, with ownership stretching from Vancouver Island to Atlantic Canada

The corporate strategy has a focus today on multi-family residentia­l rental growth boosted by its in-house constructi­on management services.

An innovative project in Calgary’s southwest beltline district is the planned conversion of the Stephenson Block at the corner of 11th Avenue and 11th Street into a rental apartment block.

Strategic believes there is a strong demand in the area for more residentia­l so is preparing to repurpose and rename the seven-storey office tower located across from the busy Midtown Co-op store.

Edwards says suburban office in Calgary is also healthy, with new tenants including Anytime Fitness, taking 6,700 square feet, a passport office and medical tenants in Sundance Corporate Campus S.E.

Next Monday, at 9 a.m., Lt.- Gov. Lois E. Mitchell and British Consul General Caroline Saunders will raise the Commonweal­th flag at McDougall House.

Calgary joins 53 countries spanning six continents and home to 2.4 billion of the world’s people in observing the day when Queen Elizabeth II will attend a multicultu­ral, multifaith service at Westminste­r Abbey.

Amazon, Apple and Facebook will be among the brightest minds in signal processing during the IEEE Internatio­nal Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre, April 16-20.

ICASSP is the world’s largest and most comprehens­ive technical conference focused on signal processing and its applicatio­ns.

Other notable events being held at the centre include the Alberta Small Brewers Associatio­n’s 2nd Alberta Craft Brewing Convention, March 12-14.

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