Thom Mahler

Director, Downtown Strategy at City of Calgary

Speaker

Thom Mahler is the Director leading The City of Calgary’s Downtown Strategy team – the stewards of The City’s $200+ million investment to build a thriving, future-focused downtown. By advancing Calgary’s Greater Downtown Plan, the team will transform downtown from the traditional 9 to 5 business district to a vibrant city centre by: offering incentives for converting empty office space to residential units and other uses; programming and activating downtown public spaces to promote vibrancy; and kickstarting public space capital projects to support thriving downtown neighbourhoods.

Thom has previously served in various managerial roles in the City’s planning department where he was responsible for long term planning, development review and land use applications primarily in Calgary’s established inner city communities and Greater Downtown areas.

Thom has over 30 years of experience in city planning and has worked in the areas of development review, urban design, policy planning and economic development. In addition to his 20 years of experience with the City of Calgary, he has also practiced in Southwestern Ontario and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. He holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from Queen’s University and a Bachelor of Arts, Honours degree in geography from the University of Manitoba.