The fight for the former Khyber building continues next week at City Hall.
The 1588 Barrington Street Building Preservation Society is urging Halifax Regional Council to push forward with the sale of the former Khyber building, despite a staff recommendation to wait the process out a little longer.
This Tuesday’s Regional Council meeting will consider a motion to hold off on selling the historic Barrington Street property to the 1588 Society—a not-for-profit organization hoping to preserve and restore the building—until HRM receives some assurance that the society’s secured external funding.
According to 1588 Society president Emily Davidson, that puts the organization in a difficult situation: They need to own the building to get government funding, and they need government funding before HRM will sell them the building.
“In one part of the motion, they’re asking us to confirm both federal and provincial funding for the project, however both federal and provincial funding bodies require us to own the building in order to be qualified for funding,” says Davidson. “There’s actually kind of a Catch-22 happening.”
The Society put forward a proposal to purchase the empty building in May 2017, with the aim to preserve as much of the exterior and heritage interior of the building as possible. It’s also hoped the former Khyber can be brought back as a performing arts space and cultural hub for the downtown.
The city’s motion, deferred from back in December, mandates the 1588 Society provide all the necessary funding assurances for its proposal by October 2018, along with updated information on fire escapes, the organization’s operating budgets and public fundraising plans. Only when those materials are submitted will staff then prepare a supplementary report on whether council should move forward with selling the building.
City staff have called 127-year-old heritage building the second-worst condition structure in HRM’s property portfolio. Initial repair estimates to bring the site up to code were priced at $4 million, which is one reason staff tried to sell the property off as surplus back in 2014. Public outcry caused council instead to pledge to work with the “friends of the Khyber” on a financially viable formula to save the decaying structure.
Now, in the interest of time, the society has sent the municipality a letter attempting to answer the questions brought forward in Tuesday’s staff motion. Davidson says the hope is that the sale process can come about a little faster.
“What it seems is that city staff is excited enough about our proposal to want to move forward with our group, but it’s looking for extra assurances,” says Davidson.
“So what we’re hoping is that council can kind of find an alternate way to make sure that those assurances are in place while still moving forward towards an agreement of purchase and sale with our group.”
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This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2018.
i played my first show and wish it was still the place it was. one of the best places in the city for music.
Thank you Coast for continuing to follow this story. People all over Canada are rooting for the reopening of this cultural space. Also, the building is now 130 years old, not 127.
thanks for the updates..
apparently the 4M price tag for fixing it up is misleading.. I heard from members of Friends of the Khyber that in the 4M quote, 500K is set aside for a “consulting firm” and 500K of it is for upcoming fix-ups that might be needed (which could be fundraised for with these heritage building grants once the ownership piece is granted).
Then of the 3M left from that, a good amount of it is for the elevator. Which I def agree with putting in, but maybe that could be say, a 3 year goal once there’s an active arts hub again, but immediately make the main floor accessible with a ramp.
So all that to say.. getting the Khyber up and running again could be done for way less $$ than this article implies.. and it is in lovely shape not crumbling. The whole point of artist-run spaces is that there is a freedom that comes with a building not being overly ‘finished’. I remember well the feeling of getting ready for a performance there and realizing that I was actually allowed to put nails in the wall or tape things on or otherwise modify and create a magical environment that reflected and enhanced the music. The warm wood of the upstairs turret room is such good acoustics and made for probably the best show that band I was in at the time ever did and launched us into cross-Canada festival bookings.
In other words, the Khyber building as a specific, artist friendly heritage space is really really good for Halifax’s creative economy. Lots of other musicians and visual artists attest to this over and over through the years.
Exciting that its being worked on in council at least… dear City, please re-offer the selling for a $1 that they wanted to do in 2014 now that there’s a group of people working on getting the funding.
..you can do it! we believe in you! and artists in Halifax and across the country believe in this heritage building
p.s. obvs shout out to the Khyber Arts Society that is rocking out in their new NSCAD building location, they are in no way dependent on this building, but both (society and the building) are worth supporting