To those fucking bozos who are all in favour of this new, UNNEEDED convention center: This stupid city can’t even get a handle on cleaning up Barrington Street, for Christ’s sake. What a wonderful tourist attraction that would be for people coming to the city: a bum on every corner and empty storefronts. Why not make the old Herald site a green space instead? And as for that arsetard who owes all those fucking empty storefronts, either shit or get off the pot. Look at how many years those places have been standing emptier than Lindsay Lohen vodka bottle. Your dismal properties are an embarrassment to this formerly great city. —Taxpayer Tired of Bending Over To Accommodate Lame Ideas
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.
Downtown Green Space = massive outdoor latrine for skells, panhandlers and other hippies. You think treated biosolids are nasty and hazardous – wait until you have to deal with the stuff that’s been processed in the diseased GI tract of a meth-head or wino.
There is a green space. It’s called the Public Gardens.
Convention centre, no – 10 story Chippendales/Hooters/hotel – why the hell not? Then everyone wins.
I like this bitch. Arsetards. I’m going to use that…
whats an embarassment to this city is the anti convention center movment. who cares! let them build it! any normal city builds a ton of infrastructure every year with out aany problem. This is getting so old. just do it, create a few jobs, see if it stimulates the meeting based economy, and if it flops …. it flops, not the end of the world. no sweat off my back! or yours.
i agree with rafiki. let them build it. let it fail like every other NEEDED, PROGRESSIVE idea coming from HRM and their idiot supporters like the commons concerts, etc. who cares. we just pay for it.
Well, it kind of is a worry to most people, Rafiki (from Lion King?), because if it’s built and flops, it will be a monolith of despair and ugly emptiness parked dead centre of a dwontown that some people do still have hope for. Barrington is looking up. The new home decor/coffee shop is quirky enough to work, wine bar is awesome, there’s a starbux instead of a tim’s, you know, it just might pull together. May take a couple more years, but what’s that, really, considering how long it’s been empty??
The convention centre has a lot against it, not least the fact that there are millions of tax dollars from all three levels going to build it. Why not a private devloper? Um, because it probably isn’t profitable.
Whatever, it’ll be built, there will be back patting all around, and rolled eyes from others, and eventually it will prove to be just another big money pit.
rafiki, I say let the people who own business property develope it ,any way they want…I as a Tax Payer, just don’t want to be on the hook with the rest of you for 160 million or so to help them build it ! ! ! !
Plus all this convention talk diverts HRM city council from important matters like trip-wiring city chickens and corralling stray cats for renewable energy and biosolids.
Why can’t they make it fully or partially parking lots? When they build a convention centre and people ask about the facility, what are they going to say, “we have no parking available but we can hold up to 800 people in our banquet hall!”???
TTFN made me LOL
Barrington is beyond recovery. Let developers get in there, tear down a few buildings, and bring some life into the area. I agree that we also do not need a convention centre based on their current proposal.
Too bad no one gives a shit about what you think, Sebastard.
The hospitality workers serving him do, PK, but they’re only frontin’ for tips.
They maybe even call him ‘sir’!
I am confused. The OB is angry at the state of downtown yet anti-development? How would moth-balling downtown be any improvement? Downtown is in such a state _because_ of attitudes such as the OB’s. We need development downtown and I think a new convention center is a great way to start….anything to break the developement ice DT.
Yeah greeeat. Build more storefronts and office space when Barrington is already half empty. Three floors of Scotia Square are emptying as well. The convention centre in the basement that no one will use is only half the problem.
three floors of SS are emptying?
I didn’t hear about that.
surely you mean three floors in one of the towers….
but still.
Green space?? Green Space?? The proposed convention centre is about a 5 iron away from Citadel Hill! How much more freakin’ green space do y’all need??
Damn, I remember when SS was the place to BE and be SEEN. haha. No, not really, but I totally remember when it had three floors of shops and was quite a hoppin’ mall. Had a movie theatre too!
NotSo, I believe the parking will be underground
Yeah, I miss the old Scotia Square too. Especially Dick Turpins.
Now that this perverion is a go, maybe council will do something smart like converting the old centre into the new main library. Let a developer put a skyscraper where the old Infirmary was. Wait did I use the words council and smart in the same senence. Sorry, my bad.
You sir, are a moron.
mel, I don’t think underground parking lot would be enough, unless they are making 4 or 5 floors of them. The new library will have an underground parking lot too, but it will be one floor. They are building the new library on a space that’s currently a parking lot…yeah one floor will be quite enough…right….
No, there won’t be any bloody parking! Like always in this damn city. I’ve never seen such a small place so anal about parking. All the side streets have those 2 hr parking signs. I wanna take a flamethrower to them. I’m gonna rip off one of those signs and seriously harm a parking enforcement person one of these days. Oh and talk about lack of flippin planning. Arg, Halifax can suck my big dick!
Donk, sweetie. Breath. May I offer you a glass of wine? I discovered this lovely white from Italy the other day….
Can I have you cute wittle cat to stroke too, as a sip the wine? With a cigarette, nay, a cigar.
OP, basic lesson in urban planning: too many parks and parking lots are detrimental to the vitality of the city.
You’re probably saying, “parks evil? But…but…they’re ‘green’! GREEN!”
As repulsive as it might sound amidst a societal obsession with “green-ness”, to build a park on this site would be among the choices most detrimental to the environment and liveliness of the city.
Halifax has a lower population density than Mississauga. This is the reason why you see so many boarded-up storefronts on Barrington and Gottingen — everyone’s moved out to buttfuck Lower Sackville. And they’re all driving into town every morning. It’s as simple as that.
A walkable city with strong local businesses is one with a dense core. Make it difficult for people to develop downtown and developers will be happy to put up another 10000 acres of sprawling suburbia.
I don’t know if a new Convention Centre will fix some of the ills the city has. It will fill a giant hole, that’s for sure. But will it be a death knell like the Flint Michigan Convention Centre? Probably not.
Beyond that, Calvin’s response is just about perfect. Build another green space and it’s only going to choke an already asphyxiated downtown core.
Yep Donk, I’ll even throw in a kitty to pet, mostly because he’s so obsessively loving that it would take 2 or 3 people for him to get his fill of cuddles.
green space is not the answer on argyle, that’s for sure, but I’m definitely not convinced the the Convention Centre is too. It’s just all the fucking money that tax payers will be pumping into it, isn’t there a better way to spend 160 million that will help revitalize downtown?
These anti-convention centre folks are very tiring. If you were so vehemently against government spending (before you realized the heritage trust thing became so passe and that you needed to change tactics quickly – to become our new fanatical financial zealots, as well as architecture critiques and urban planners) where were you when we dropped $50 million on a skating rink (the 4-pad) – oh, I see, $50 million of “our money” is okay for skating rinks, just not a development downtown that consists of buildings higher than 6 storeys. ok.
Wanna help the provincial finances? Lobby your MLA to sell the NSLC and put the entire amount (probably hundreds of millions, possibly billions) on the debt, saving us easily as much as we are going to spend on this convention centre, yearly, in interest savings on our debt.
Otherwise, shut the hell up, your thinly veneered “facade” is showing.
Dude, I’m all for spending $ on recreational programming and facilities. Especially when they’re needed. It’s so important for the quality of life of RESIDENTS of a municipality. THAT’S what I pay taxes for. Not for big biz and conventions. Having a great place to live is what is going to draw more people to live here. Not a convention centre. There has to be a balance.
So shut the hell up, I’m allowed an opinion too. Go ahead, build it, but they better not be pulling out of other commitments and improvements that actually benefit residents – like the bus terminal, library, etc, etc – just so dudes in suits can pat each other on the back. I’m actually all in favour of high density downtown, it makes sense, build it big, make it stunning, make it beautiful. But if it’s an independent business, let them take the risk. I don’t pay taxes for a convention centre. I pay takes for roads, parks, programs, public assets. A convention centre is a PRIVATE asset.
And I’m someone who lives down here, and shops down here.
Just an observation but it seems a lot of people who don’t want the convention/office/residential centre are people who don’t even live in the city. They’re the people who complain about having to drive into the city every day from some suburb and complain about not being able to park directly in front of the door of a store. This centre is not going to be the one and only thing that saves the city, but I think it’s a good start, along with the new library. Although some people are complaing about the cost of the library…a guess a rotted box with books thrown in it would do for some.
The problem with the convention centre isn’t necessarily that it costs a lot of money. It’s that there’s not really a good business case for it, as outlined in Tim Bousquet’s excellent series of articles.
If you want to fix Barrington St (which honestly isn’t even that bad, people here have zero sense of perspective), pick your ass up from the suburbs and move downtown. More people living in the city core means a larger customer base means more incentive for businesses to set up shop. The only tweak the CC really needs is to change the office tower into a residential structure – the more dense downtown gets the better.
In any case, I’ve STILL yet to hear any suggestions of what else to do with the site. Having a giant hole in the ground adjacent to the region’s largest entertainment district is completely unforgivable and has a far more negative impact than the constant whining about Barrington ever has.
Im all for green space but how do you expect the city to survive with out developing it? We are unable to hold any big conferences or events. These event bring tourism and money to our city which will in turn help us grow. Also this so called horrid convention center creats jobs in our city for all those who bitch they cant find jobs.