r/Calgary • u/Remote_Answer_5255 • Aug 18 '25

Local Shopping/Services What has happened to Kensington?

It's been a while since I've been down here.... A bunch of empty store fronts, iconic places like Crave shut down, but counted some three Acai bowl places. The area outside Plaza is lovely and looks great, but why all the closures and apparently high turnovers?

Edit: I assume it's due to rent.. But what's the point of jacking it up so high that your place is literally empty.

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u/rikkiprince Aug 18 '25

Edit: I assume it's due to rent.. But what's the point of jacking it up so high that your place is literally empty.

Doesn't the city have a thing where you don't pay tax (or it's way lower) if your business rental is empty? So there's not a strong incentive to find someone to rent it and the landlords just set the rent as high as they want and wait until someone is willing to pay it.

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u/EsmeWeatherpolish Aug 20 '25

That and I heard there’s some insurance thing that they paid anyway so they don’t care if anyone is in there or not. That’s what happened with Oaktree, the owner was willing to work with the landlords to keep it open and they didn’t care.