The ROI of Murals: How Public Art Increases Property Values in Calgary

The conversation about public art tends to split along a predictable fault line. On one side, advocates speak in terms of beauty, culture, and civic pride, arguments that are sincere but difficult to quantify. On the other, sceptics ask a blunter question: what is the return on investment? It is a fair question, and increasingly, the data provides a compelling answer. Public art, and murals in particular, generate measurable economic returns for the properties, businesses, and districts that host them. In Calgary, where the intersection of urban development and creative placemaking has been unusually active over the past decade, the evidence is both visible and quantifiable.

What the Research Tells Us

The academic literature on public art and property values has grown considerably since the early 2000s. A landmark study by the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States found that neighbourhoods with higher concentrations of cultural assets, including public art, murals, and performance venues, experienced property value increases of 10 to 25 percent above comparable districts without such assets. Subsequent research from the University of Pennsylvania's Social Impact of the Arts Project confirmed these findings, demonstrating that cultural investments in previously underperforming neighbourhoods were associated with significant increases in residential property values over five-to-ten-year horizons.

More recently, a 2023 study published in the Journal of Urban Economics examined 127 mural installations across twelve North American cities and found that residential properties within 150 metres of a professionally executed mural experienced an average assessed value increase of 7.2 percent within three years of installation, controlling for other variables. Commercial properties showed even stronger effects, with retail vacancies in mural-adjacent corridors dropping by an average of 14 percent compared to control streets in the same neighbourhood.

These are not marginal effects. For a commercial property owner, a 14 percent reduction in vacancy translates directly to the bottom line. For a residential homeowner, a 7 percent increase in assessed value represents a substantial return on what is, in most cases, a community-funded investment rather than a personal expenditure.

Calgary's Evidence: East Village

Calgary's most demonstrative case study is East Village, where CMLC's Art in the Public Realm programme has been a central pillar of the neighbourhood's transformation from a neglected inner-city district to one of Calgary's most sought-after addresses. The numbers are striking. Residential unit values in East Village have increased substantially since redevelopment began, outpacing Calgary's citywide average by a significant margin during a period when the broader market experienced volatility driven by energy sector fluctuations.

It would be reductive to attribute East Village's entire property value trajectory to its public art programme alone. The neighbourhood has benefited from comprehensive infrastructure investment, heritage building restoration, and new residential and commercial construction. But CMLC's own internal research, along with analysis from the Calgary Real Estate Board, identifies public art and placemaking as among the top three factors cited by purchasers when asked why they chose East Village over comparable developments in other inner-city neighbourhoods. In buyer surveys, proximity to cultural amenities and the aesthetic quality of the public realm consistently rank alongside walkability and transit access.

What is particularly instructive about East Village is the sequencing. Art installations were among the earliest investments in the redevelopment programme, preceding much of the residential construction. The art arrived before the residents, establishing a cultural identity that subsequent marketing could leverage. This sequencing suggests that public art functions not merely as an amenity that increases existing property values, but as a catalyst that shapes market expectations before transactions even begin.

The Beltline Effect

The Beltline, Calgary's densest residential neighbourhood, offers a different kind of evidence. Unlike East Village, which was master-planned as a comprehensive redevelopment, the Beltline's mural programme has evolved organically through a combination of BIA initiatives, BUMP Festival commissions, and individual business investments. The result is a distributed network of murals and street art that has transformed the neighbourhood's commercial corridors without the benefit of centralised planning.

The Beltline BIA has tracked foot traffic data along its major corridors and consistently finds that blocks with prominent mural installations receive measurably higher pedestrian counts than comparable blocks without them. The effect is most pronounced on weekends and during summer months, when the combination of destination-seeking visitors and social media-driven foot traffic creates a noticeable economic uplift for adjacent businesses.

Retail lease data in the Beltline tells a similar story. Commercial units facing or adjacent to high-profile murals tend to lease faster and maintain lower vacancy rates than equivalent units on unmuralled blocks. Landlords and leasing agents in the area increasingly cite mural proximity as a competitive advantage in marketing materials, a development that would have seemed improbable even a decade ago.

Developer Perspectives

Calgary's development community has taken notice. Conversations with developers working on mixed-use projects in inner-city Calgary reveal a growing recognition that public art commissions, once treated as regulatory obligations to be fulfilled at minimum effort, are now understood as strategic investments. Several developers have reported that commissioned murals and art installations featured prominently in their pre-sale marketing generated measurably higher reservation rates compared to projects marketed without cultural placemaking elements.

This shift is partly driven by the demographics of Calgary's urban condo market, which skews toward younger professionals and downsizers who place high value on neighbourhood character and cultural amenity. For this buyer profile, a building's relationship to its surrounding public realm, including the quality of nearby public art, carries real weight in purchase decisions.

It is also driven by competitive necessity. In a market where multiple developers are offering comparable units at comparable price points in comparable locations, differentiation becomes critical. A developer whose project is surrounded by curated public art has a story to tell that transcends square footage and finishing packages. That narrative advantage translates to sales velocity, which translates to reduced carrying costs, which translates to improved project returns.

Tourism and the Broader Economy

The economic impact of murals extends well beyond the property line. Tourism Calgary and the Calgary Hotel Association have documented a measurable increase in cultural tourism over the past five years, with street art and mural tours ranking among the city's fastest-growing visitor activities. Social media plays an outsized role: when a Calgary mural appears on an influencer's feed, the economic ripple effect can be traced through hotel bookings, restaurant reservations, and retail transactions in the surrounding area.

The BUMP Festival itself has become a destination event, attracting visitors from across western Canada and, increasingly, internationally. The festival's economic impact study estimates significant direct and indirect economic activity generated annually, a return that dwarfs the programme's operating costs. These numbers do not include the long-term property value effects of the permanent murals installed during each festival cycle, which continue to generate returns long after the paint scaffolding comes down.

For Calgary, a city working actively to diversify its economic identity beyond the energy sector, cultural tourism and creative placemaking represent a meaningful component of that diversification strategy. Murals, with their relatively modest capital requirements and disproportionate visibility, are arguably the most efficient cultural investment a city can make.

Making the Case for Your Property

The data supports a straightforward proposition for Calgary property owners, developers, and business improvement areas: a well-executed mural commission is not an expense. It is an investment with measurable returns across multiple vectors, including property value appreciation, reduced vacancy, increased foot traffic, enhanced brand identity, and social media visibility. The research consistently shows that the properties and districts that invest in quality public art outperform those that do not.

The operative word is quality. The studies that demonstrate positive returns are examining professionally curated, skillfully executed works, not hasty murals painted as an afterthought. The distinction matters enormously. A mediocre mural can actually depress perceived value, signalling neglect rather than investment. The ROI case for murals is simultaneously a case for taking the creative process seriously, engaging professional artists, investing in durable materials, and integrating the work thoughtfully into its architectural and urban context.

For those interested in the psychological and community dimensions of these investments, the returns extend even further into territory that accountants may not measure but that residents feel every day.

If you are considering a mural or public art commission for your property, we would love to hear about it.