The Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund (OCIF) will get another $60 million to help boost the local economy, and its CEO said it will keep its momentum going.

Calgary city councillors approved the disbursement of $60 million over the next four years, in $15 million chunks, coming from the City of Calgary’s Fiscal Stability Reserve.

Calgary Economic Development president and CEO Brad Parry, who is also the CEO of the OCIF, said the next tranche of funding needs to look at how they can take the next step in building innovation in an increasingly diversified economy.

“How do we start thinking about how we help companies scale? How do we look for those opportunities? How do we make sure we have the right kind of training opportunities in this system? How do we make sure we have the talent to allow those companies to scale, which is part of our thesis going forward?” Parry told LWC.

“So, for us, the 60 (million) is really something that’s going to help us continue to make the deals that we have to make to help attract those kinds of opportunities and investments in the community.”

Parry said since the first $100 million was delivered in 2018, the economic landscape has changed and so have the sectors they see as a part of Calgary’s economic future. It’s in those places that will yield results not just today, but “15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years out,” where they want to invest this capital, he said.

“It’s combustible capital. This capital has to go in and create something new, bigger and better, and that’s part of the thesis that we have,” he said.

According to OCIF, the initial $100 million investment has spurred nearly $900 million in new investment, created more than 3,000 jobs and absorbed more than 594,000 square feet of commercial real estate.

OCIF is projecting that the current $6.8 million that remains in the fund will be exhausted by the end of 2025.

Plenty of examples of success

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who sponsored the Notice of Motion that came to council, said that there are numerous examples of how OCIF has contributed to the local economy.

He said one of the biggest impacts of the OCIF funding is that it has taken up office space in the downtown. That helps lessen the overall property tax burden on Calgary homeowners and small businesses.

“That increases the asset, the value of that asset, which reduces the tax burden on some of the outlying areas that have some of that tax burden has been pushed out to,” he said.

“So, at least, bringing back some of that value into the downtown core, reinvigorating the downtown by having more businesses, more employees operating downtown, working downtown, and now actually potentially living downtown through the office-to-residential conversion.

“It all comes together as a very comprehensive and cohesive type of investment,” he said.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that OCIF has delivered a lot of positive results for Calgary.

“We’ve got a lot of folks who believe in our city, and it is that type of offering through the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund that gives them that little hand to get their businesses going,” she said.

“This fund has produced dramatic results, and I’m looking forward to what it can do for the next four years.”

Previously, Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said that she’d like to see closer reporting of how the new funds are deployed.

Under the new framework, OCIF will have to submit an annual review of how the funds have been committed and what results have been achieved with those funds, before the next $15 million tranche of funding is approved.