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It will likely be 2018 before anyone’s down at the Khyber.
A staff report coming to HRM Regional Council on Tuesday is once again recommending to sell 1588 Barrington Street, but this time under the city’s “community interest” category.
That means a community group will be able to buy the property at less-than-market value, but not before a competitive application process and public hearing. Even in a best case scenario city staff warn that will take between 18 to 24 months.
That’s a long wait for the Friends of the Khyber and 1588 Barrington Street Building Preservation Society, who have been working over the last year on plans to renovate and expand the storied heritage property. The consortium of community activists submitted a proposal to the city earlier this winter, but needed HRM to delay any decision on selling the building for one year to allow time to fundraise. It was then hoped Halifax would sell the Khyber to the group for a less-than-market value of around $1 (what the city paid for it originally).
As good as that proposal may or may not have been, HRM has no way of selling property to a single potential buyer at less-than-market value.
“There is no program of council that enables staff to negotiate exclusively to donate a building,” acting director of operations support Peter Stickings writes.
Friends of the Khyber organizer Emily Davidson says she has faith in the process, despite the risk of opening the building’s future up to other potential proposals.
“This is kind of the best case scenario in terms of the building eventually coming into the hands of our group,” she says. “We think that we’ve really integrated a bunch of communities that have a stake in the building…I feel excited about the possibility of it being in the community stream.”
The city could also sell the Khyber to the community group at market price, but that would require a tremendous amount more fundraising, on top of renovation costs.
Asbestos, lack of accessibility and deteriorating conditions lead tenants Heritage Trust and the Khyber Arts Society to vacate 1588 Barrington Street in early 2014 while HRM assessed what was needed for renovations. The KAS moved to Cornwallis Street temporarily before heading down to Hollis Street. City staff estimated it would take $4 million to bring the building up to code, and instead recommended the property be sold as surplus.
Public outcry lead Regional Council to instead direct staff and community groups to figure out some way—any way—to save the building and manifest the downtown arts incubator that council has repeatedly asked for.
If the Friends of the Khyber’s extensive proposal is approved, it would be quite literally a new lease on life for the 127-year-old heritage building.
In the meantime, HRM is paying roughly $35,000 annually in security and utilities on the Khyber building while it sits empty.
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This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2016.
Honest question, can someone please explain to me why the Khyber Arts Society requires that building no matter what the cost is to themselves or taxpayers. Why can they not permanently locate to a different space? I know they have a long history there but is that the only reason?
Seriously, it would take nearly 2 years? The city council really wants to claim that level incompetence?
@oldnews: The honest answer, my answer at least, is that preserving our heritage buildings connects us to our past. This simple answer is more important than it may at first seem, as connections give us a sense of rootedness and belonging, particularly within the communities that have a special interest or history with those buildings.
Artists can and do create wherever they are, but feeling like you belong in a place and to a community changes how you perceive things in general, and heavily weights on one’s desire to become further engaged in the community, or to move on to some place that values their contributions. If you feel you belong, you want to stay. If you feel like no one cares, you want to leave. Preserving the Khyber shows, to some degree, that we value our artists and the role they play.
Society needs artists as they are the manufacturers of culture. They interpret their experience of life in creative ways and effectively publish those ideas for the rest of us to consider, giving us an antidote to the ennui of our own routines, and new ways to look at things and the problems that we confront in our lives. The perspectives that take root, along with other elements of living, become the foundations of our local culture. We need culture to help us understand who we are both as a community and as a species.
Think of any place you have ever desired to go: If you rule out the natural geology, climate, flora and fauna, the only other thing is the culture that is unique to that place and the artifacts that reflect it. If you were to show off Halifax to some guests, would you first take them to Burnside, and boast of it’s convenient concentration of commercial services? Perhaps a tour of the water treatment facilities, or the container yards along the harbour? I highly doubt it, unless you work there. The places and systems that make life here convenient, possible and profitable are not necessarily the things that speak to our humanity, attract newcomers, or are the things that make us proud; the reasons we want to stay.
If we gut our city of places that foster the arts, we risk losing far more than four million dollars. To can the Khyber would be like disowning your grandparents when they can no longer support themselves and need a little help. It would hurt you and your legacy in a way you could not fix with ten times the money saved.
Dana Grund
Hi oldnews, please read the article carefully. The proposal presented was by the 1588 Barrington Street Building Preservation Society, not the Khyber Arts Society.
Hi oldnews, please read the article carefully. The proposal presented was by the 1588 Barrington Street Building Preservation Society, not the Khyber Arts Society.
Come check out the current exhibition: http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/cassie-pack…
Forget about who is in the building. It should be about the preservation of our Heritage.
@oldnews I think its because there’s no other space in sight to move into. Not with that much space and potential and history. When KAS moved out it was near impossible to find a new space, even one a quarter of the size. People have their teeth sunk into this one and they don’t wanna let go for good reason.