The city hopes that it can create new investments and lure cash from other orders of government in a $1 billion effort to transform downtown from a hollowed out core of office towers to a more vibrant community.
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For almost two decades, a compact office building on 7th Avenue S.W. was home to Dome Petroleum, as the famed Calgary company led by Smilinâ Jack Gallagher searched for oil and gas across Western Canada and the Arctic.
Those days are long gone.
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Today, the 10-storey tower is a shell of a structure, with floor upon floor of unused offices. Paint is peeling in the stairwells. The street-level coffee shop is shuttered, with mugs, chairs and tables still sitting in place, waiting for people to return.