To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Alberta Real Estate Foundation has added an additional $2 million in community investment funds this year.
The 30th Anniversary Legacy Grants program supports “distinctive and high-impact projects which drive transformational long-term change to advance the real estate industry and real estate across Alberta,” the foundation says.
In June, $943,000 was approved for the following projects:
Indigenous Inclusion and Career Development in Alberta’s Commercial Real Estate Industry by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) Edmonton
This program is the first collaborative project of its kind in real estate in Canada. The project will start as a pilot in the Edmonton region and Northeast Alberta and has three goals:
1) to raise awareness about commercial real estate career opportunities among Indigenous people and invite them into the industry through a targeted campaign and outreach
2) to provide training and employment opportunities to Indigenous people of various ages and stages in their lives
3) to provide Indigenous awareness education and engagement support to commercial real estate companies. Led by an experienced steering committee of Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations and companies, the project is designed to become a full program that can be rolled out across Alberta and Canada by other organizations.
Civic Commons Catalyst: Transformative Revitalization in Alberta’s Underutilized Downtown Assets by the University of Calgary, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape
The project aims to “take underutilized spatial assets in the City of Calgary and catalyze them into positive assets for the community that can revitalize the downtown,” the foundation says. In Phase I of the project, the catalyst identified zones of opportunity so that assets can be networked together and help focus strategies for economic development and impact investment. In this Phase II of the project, it aims to mobilize the research produced in the first year in two key ways:
1) develop at least six in-depth project proposals for the City of Calgary
2) create a catalogue of civic assets for three rural communities in Alberta, culminating in a series of both private and public knowledge mobilization and dissemination activities that will include one lecture event, at least one public exhibition and at least one regional/national forum hosted by Evergreen that can centre the Alberta real estate sector’s innovative approach to revitalization of downtowns, the foundation says.
Online Open Data Centre of Alberta Urban Real Estate by the University of Alberta
Created with and for real estate industry professionals, researchers, policymakers and Albertans who need access to high-quality deep real estate data, this is a free public online data portal, the foundation says. It’s designed with the potential to be integrated with Alberta real estate industry databases about urban real estate, local economy and quality of life. Unlike library collections directing users to databases or their providers, the Online Open Data Centre for Alberta Urban Real Estate develops and integrates neighbourhood-level data from different sources in one place, says the foundation.
Under Alberta’s Real Estate Act, whenever a consumer deposits money in trust through a real estate broker, property manager or commercial broker, the interest earned on the deposit is accumulated and forwarded to the foundation for reinvestment into Alberta’s communities. Since its inception in 1991, the foundation has invested over 23 million in grants to 650 initiatives across Alberta.
