Calgary's tallest building won't have the claim to fame at the highest skyscraper outside of Toronto for much longer.
The Calgary Herald reports that The Bow tower will soon be eclipsed by a brand new tower, after Brookfield Properties submitted plans this week for a 56-storey, 247 metre tower to be built on the old Herald Building site at the corner of 7 Ave. and 1 St. S.W.
225 Sixth, as the development is being called for now, is expected to rise over the next five years. Jan Sucharda, project developer for Brookfield Properties, told the Calgary Sun they are currently looking for a main tenant for the building but he fully expects the project will come to fruition.
Sucharda also told The Calgary Sun it was not the company's intention to build bigger than The Bow, which stands at a height of 236 metres and 58 storeys, but after purchasing the lot "it just so happened" the planned building stood taller.
Currently in the process of moving tenants in, The Bow is home to Encana/Cenovus headquarters and was announced six years ago. It became the first skyscraper in Calgary to stand taller than the Suncor Energy Centre and the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto. The Bow's beautiful crescent design will not be matched by 225 Sixth, which designs show a box-like building, with edges curving and tapering toward an inverted roof.
Story continues after the slideshow...
The Bow Tower Over Calgary
Calgary skyscraper enthusiast Aaron Stayner told the Herald the thought of a new tower in downtown is exciting, but The Bow remains in a class of its own.
"(225 Sixth) will look good, but I think the Bow will still be what your eye's drawn to. It's stunning," he said.
The new building, which will provide more than 2.8 million square feet of office space, would be welcome in a city that is struggling for office space - a report out this week put office vacancy in Calgary's downtown core at less than one per cent.
"The core is extremely strong. A number of our tenants that we speak to have greater needs for space," Sucharda told The Sun. "We obviously struggle to find expansion space for our existing tenants, let alone how to accommodate new tenants entering the marketplace," he said.
The site will also include an additional 42-storey building, a glass atrium connecting the two buildings and an open plaza for film screenings in the summer and ice skating in the winter.
Because the tower will sit smack-dab in the middle of Calgary's downtown core, "it's a critical piece of the downtown fabric," alderman Druh Farrell told the Herald.
"It's very important that it be interesting, we deserve that," she said.