Nice to see people are still as greedy as ever. I’ve just heard that a great place downtown is maybe closing due to landlord greed. It has been a staple on Barrington street for the last (at least) 8 years for amazing breakfast and lunches, and now, may need to shut their doors. The landlord was given a grant to redo the building which is a good thing, but turned around and hiked the rental price sky high. Small business loses again, and another place bits the dust to make Barrington the abysmal barren desert of empty store fronts. Downtown Halifax needs to get their stuff together to make a vibrate place to visit…and losing these places doesn’t help!! —Concerned Luncher
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2012.
Trust me, it’s much easier to keep this place the shithole it is and have people enjoy LEAVING here rather than enjoy actually coming here.
It saddened me to have to return yesterday.
🙁
I don’t want to live in a place that vibrates!
the rent for small businesses is bad all over
pleeeeeeeeeeeeese Halifax, do NOT turn into Vancouver. nothing but chains can afford most locations.
shop local folks! it’s the only way for them to survive.
maybe 20 more starbucks stores would help revitalize downtown,,,,,,
Havent most of us elderly farts heard the same old downtown crap for many many many moons and it is still the same old gripes ,,,,,
ahhhhhh,,,but wait ,,,,ships are a comin’,that will solve all our problems,,,,,,right????
Apparently Ontario is cheapest… surprisingly.
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/taxinfo/l…
SS was terrible for that! Small independents pushed out for a big Tims!
Down town needs more clothing/DJ stores. And sushi joints.
talk about kicking a dying fucking horse. downtown halifux has been dead for a long time, i think it should be dozed over and a new city built, from the ground up. maybe some of those ultra high wages the politrickons get, could go towards it.
I’ll tell you what we really need, more Condo’s, office towers, coffee shops and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, will someone get us a new convention center. The one we have is like so 1980.
We have a similar thing going on in Elmsdale, the Family owned supermarket owns a mall there & they doubled the local landromats rent. Which caused the owner to close….here we are 8 months later & the shop is still empty.
So I wonder what double of nothing is ?
The local talk is they only want ‘name brand’ stores in ther’ mall !
Which is why the only place I go to in there is the little secondhand bookstore, which we are hearing is about to need to release & is facing the same double the rent !
That poor done by local Grocery family, so hard up for money they gotta put others out of business.
Blow me has a good point, maybe we should bulldoze some of it and rebuild. Downtown has been in decline for decades, while the outlying neighborhoods rapidly expand and have new shops opening all the time. Like ploopy said, more condo’s, more office towers, and more apartments. I also respect the heritage status of Citadel Hill and understand the need for the amazing view. But to blatently say no to building upwards, come on HRM By Design, what other city dictates their downtown core by the view from a hill? And whats in the viewline now? Old dingy unused buildings, historic brick facades that hide empty lots, crummy parking lots (a downtown parkade would make sense, and free up valuable building areas). I don’t agree that rent is the problem, this may upset some, but rent is expensive everywhere. I understand a couple hundred dollars more than some cities sounds like alot, but that means the business in question only has to increase profits by a few dollars a day. If we expanded the population in the area, that wouldn’t be an issue. I realize then that landlords would want to increase the rent more, that is when I believe some sort of rent control should come into play. Same point on these amazingly high tax rates I always hear about. I agree its more then some provinces and territories, but it works out to small change a day. If thats the issue in a shop going out of business, then they obviously can’t compete in the market place where so many others can. We need a population boost downtown, and we need it fast. Then all of the pieces will slowly fall into place. And yet, the history of our downtown makes me less optimistic about any positive outcome, even the ideas I just wrote about. I love Halifax the most out of every place I’ve lived, I just can’t/will never admit that its dead.
We just got a new councilor for the downtown area. Hopefully he’ll bring about some change.
Whoever is in charge of city planning needs to be fired. I could do a better job in my sleep! Speaking as one who has tried to propose developments inside the city, it’s near impossible sometimes due to the outdated zoning, building bylaws and codes. Not to mention the heritage society, which wants to keep every decrepit old ruin standing (as much as some of them can be considered to be standing). Progress is impossible because the city limits every aspect of it. And there’s sooo many people who have amazing ideas for change, and a desire to follow through with them!