The ad for the Montana condo tower promote units from $300,000 and up. (Courtesy Travis Gertz)

A condo ad with the tagline "Look up … Way up!" under a shot of a woman in a short skirt gives Calgary a bad image, especially with so many visitors expected for the Calgary Stampede, says a local designer.

"It was kind of tasteless, a little bit offensive to a lot of people," said Travis Gertz, a web designer who spotted the ad in a restaurant bathroom. His wife also saw it on a downtown billboard.

"We have things like Stampede coming … and it just seems we can do better than that," he told CBC News on Tuesday. "Is this the kind of message that we want to be spreading? That we're misogynistic?"

The ad promotes the Montana, a 27-storey tower at 803 15th Ave. S.W., just off the popular 17th Avenue strip. One-bedroom units are advertised at $310,000 and up.

A woman who answered the phone at the Montana's sales centre said, "It's just amazing what good advertising can do," before referring interview requests to the sales manager who was out of town.

ProCura, the developer of the Montana, boasts of donating $1,000 from the sale of each unit to the Famous 5 Foundation, a non-profit group dedicated to preserving the legacy of famed Canadian suffragists and women's rights advocates.

Gertz, 28, thinks the ads should be taken down, because Calgary companies can "do a lot better."

"I really think the designers and the companies responsible for them are trying to be hip," he said. "But I don't know anyone my age that it really speaks to."

Earlier this year, an ad campaign for a different Calgary condo project was taken down after it was denounced as sexist.

Posters for the Midtown tower featured the slogan: "A $20,000 down payment is as easy as a 25-year-old scotch, or a 25-year-old blonde on 25-year-old scotch. Get on it."