Eau Claire Place I is an office-to-residential conversion project, bringing much-needed rental housing to Calgary’s Eau Claire neighborhood through the City’s Downtown Development Incentive Program and ongoing downtown revitalization efforts.
Challenge
Converting a seven-story office building into residential use required maximizing the value of the existing structure while delivering contemporary housing in a competitive urban market. The project also needed to meet aggressive timelines and preserve the character of a well-positioned building suited to adaptive reuse.
Solution
The design transforms the building into approximately 87 market rental units with resident amenities including a gym, lounge, and a new residential entrance. Existing assets, including the optimal floorplate configuration, central elevator core, underground parking, exterior window grid, and precast concrete panels, are retained and repurposed, allowing the building’s brutalist character to remain intact.
Outcome
The development introduces new housing to one of Calgary’s most established urban neighborhoods while supporting the broader revitalization of the downtown core. A Life Cycle Assessment confirmed that repurposing the existing structure and materials achieved a 90% reduction in embodied carbon and approximately 2,145 tCO₂e, which is comparable to the annual emissions from nearly 500 gasoline-powered vehicles, the annual energy use of 288 homes, or the carbon sequestered in one year by 2,152 acres (871 hectares) of forests.
