City of Calgary Master Facilities Plan

Valued at CAN$3.72 billion, the City of Calgary’s facilities are a valuable civic asset. Yet for years the City has been operating under an inefficient, decentralized model in which business units plan their own real estate portfolios.

Calgary’s City Council created an Integrated Civic Facilities Planning (ICFP) program to explore how the City could more effectively manage its facilities, especially by collocating them. This approach would support a broader vision for Calgary, achieve economies of scale, centralize multiple services and, ultimately, better meet citizens’ needs. But it also would represent a significant change to governance and funding processes.

HOK led ongoing engagement activities, data collection and analysis to support the City’s ICFP. The team provided:

• A strategic office accommodation plan and workplace strategy
• An opportunities assessment for collocating and integrating facilities
• An analysis of the impact on the City’s real estate portfolio and asset management
• A space calculator tool
• A change management strategy
• Communications planning and delivery

HOK developed a business case using a balanced scorecard and cost-impact analysis. This included developing a pro-forma tool to support decision making, benchmarking and research on workplace best practices.

The team explored the potential for the City to partner with the private sector as well as other branches of government and service providers.