'There's this entrepreneurial spirit': Calgary charts new course for its economic future again

With arched windows and Edwardianpilasters, the Odd Fellows Hall in downtown Calgary harkens back to a time when city fathers dreamed of a prairie metropolis as great as Chicago.

Today, the 105-year-old structure is alive again with the ambitions of another generation of Calgarians, one with aneye on Silicon Valley, notthe Windy City.

It's the home of Nucleus, a not-for-profit hub where the users ranging from startupsto post-secondary schoolsto venture funds meet, work, learn and discuss innovation.

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If all goes well, it'll be a hotbed forCalgary's emerging technology sector.

Oras 29-year-old Mark Blackwell, one of the bright minds behind Nucleus, enthusiastically puts it, this willbe a place to "start figuring our shit out as it relates to Calgary 2.0."

What will Calgary 2.0 look like? Blackwell is one of many people invested in thatquestion. Calgary's future is a hot topic in offices fromcorporate headquartersto city hall.

It's also a subjectof intense focusat Calgary Economic Development (CED). The organization, already spearheading efforts to land Amazon's second headquarters, is now crafting Calgary's new economic strategy.

I think we still suffer from the stereotype of Stampede and cowboys and pickup trucks and oil, which is not a very innovative stereotype.- Adam Legge, former president of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce

It's a sweeping exercisescrutinizingthe city's strengths and weaknesses, the talent it's producing, industries that could be built upon and potential opportunities for upcomingsectors.

"For the last 25 years we have led economic and population growth in this country," said Court Ellingson, CED's vice-president of research and strategy.

'We will continue to lead this country'

"And it is our plan that over the next 25 years we will continue to lead this country and we will double our city in size."

It's a tall order.

While it's been barely five years since CED'slaststrategy was inked, in some ways, it's been a lifetime. Calgary once had the swagger that came with $100US oil and a boom that delivered jobs, immigration and investment.

The good times would never end.Thenthey did.

Oil prices began a long slide in 2014, ultimatelyskiddingbelow $30 per barrel two years later. Downtown towers emptiedout as layoff notices spread far and wide.Alberta's unemployment rate hit its highest point in two decades.

Even now, with the provincial economy leading the country in growth, unemploymentat 7.3 per centremains greater than the national average.

CED is now looking to further broaden Calgary's financial prospects, with perhaps no better example than the organization's ambitious chase of the Amazon prize a bid that hasgrabbed headlinesdespite going up againstthe likes of Toronto, New York and Washington, D.C.

CED is sifting through reams of analysisto identifyCalgary's advantages. Grafted onto it will be consultations with hundreds of citizens. The work, which began late last year, will be completed in the next few months.

"There's an understanding in this community that we are going through a structural change of the economy," Ellingson said.

"We often see or think about the reflection of that structural change being the change to oil and gas, but actually the whole globe is going through an era of change right now."

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Recent upheaval has forced many cities to take a hard look in the mirror. And there's no shortage of communities looking for ways to shift their reliance from one industry and spread it over several.

Calgaryandthe provincehas been down this road before.

Diversification effortsimportant

In the late 1990s, with oil prices sagging, the provincepumped both money and air into Alberta's nascent technology sector. While there were successes, diversification efforts took a back seat when oil boomed again.

These days, officials note that the city is makingbig strides in agriculture, technology, transportation and tourism.

For instance, Tourism Calgary reports that the city attracted a record 83 events in 2017, ranging from the arts to athletics. In the third quarter of the year, the sectorsaw a year-over-year increase of anadditional 72,779 overnight hotel rooms sold duringthe three-month summer period also a record.

"Tourism brings over $1.7 billion [Cdn] to our economy, locally, every year," said Cassandra McAuley of Tourism Calgary.

"When tourism is strong, and when we have a strong city, it really has a strong ripple effect."

Former Calgary Chamber of Commerce president AdamLeggesays thefocus on diversification can't be lost.

It's important, regardless of oil prices,because Calgary isfacing along climb after the last collapse. In fact, it could be 10 years before itfeels like the city has got its groove back, Leggesaid.

He cites Calgary's education levels, quality of life and enviable location as reasons for optimism.But the city has challenges.

He worries local government maystruggle with the pace of innovation and believes Calgary still labours under thestereotype of a city that doesn't necessarily embrace change.

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"I think we still suffer from the stereotype of Stampede and cowboys and pickup trucks and oil, which is not a very innovative stereotype,"Leggesaid.

Innovation is no stranger to Blackwell, however. And, as Calgary tries to find its economic way, it's people like him from whomCEDwill seekinput.

Blackwell knows the buzz of a thriving tech sector, takinga Calgary software company on a "roller-coasterride"through California's Silicon Valley.

"We almost went bankrupt twice but we got some really good advisers," he said. "Long story short, we kind of kept it between three of us and sold it for just about $30 million."

Valley life was good, but Blackwell choseto return to his hometown tohelp grow the local sector. He thinks Calgary can create something special andsees a lot of promise in the young, talented entrepreneurs who are striking out on their own instead of scanningjob boards.

"We can't forget that this city was built from entrepreneurs in a whole different era,and there's this entrepreneurial spirit that drives this town," he said. "It's now just an entirely different game."