Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but dishonesty is another thing entirely. From this morning’s Chronicle-Herald:
Premier Rodney MacDonald said he’s disappointed that an old wooden building on Upper Water Street was levelled over the weekend.”Whenever you see a piece of our heritage going by the wayside, that’s not a good thing,” the premier told reporters at the legislature Monday.
Of course, the very same Rodney MacDonald two weeks ago said he wanted to override the Halifax council’s rejection of the Waterside Centre development application. That application was dependant upon tearing down the Sweet Basil building— Waterside could not have been built without tearing down Sweet Basil.MacDonald can’t have it both ways; he either supported tearing down Sweet Basil or he didn’t. It’s dishonest to claim otherwise.And, I’ve been meaning to point this mistaken description from the Chronicle-Herald for sometime:
Waterside Centre would unify four adjacent historic buildings and two empty lots and add a six-storey glass office tower above them.
That’s about the sixth or seventh time I’ve seen the same description of the Waterside project in the paper, but it’s completely wrong. The four remaining buildings will not be “connected”— they’ll be torn down, completely. The facades of the buildings will either be kept standing or rebuilt, but in any meaningful sense the buildings themselves will be torn down completely. Then a new building will be built in their stead, from the ground up. And that building won’t be six storeys, but rather nine. (There’s a complete description of the project here.)Suggesting that the four other buildings will be left standing, connected, and a new six storey structure built above the existing buildings is a nice pro-development framing, but it’s not, you know, true.
This article appears in Oct 30 – Nov 5, 2008.
I agree with the comment that our Premier can not have it both ways.This project has caused so much debate, and there has been so much mis-information distibuted by the Heritage Trust, and the Mayor’s office that I thought it time to weigh in and provide some facts, and ask some relevant questions.1. Armour fought (and paid for) a legal battle to have the “Sweet Basil” building’s Heritage Status removed. They could have applied for de-registration and waited the applicable 12 months for this, then applied for the demolition process. Why would they do this? Answer: Ben McCrea is a life-long supporter of Heritage, and did not want his name associated with tearing down a Registered building.2. There has been much talk from the Mayor’s office about 6 projects that have recently been approved by council. Have any of these been for commercial office space? Located in the CBD? No need to search…the answer is no.3. The Heritage Trust has floated an idea of a “land swap”, indicating 6 acres of undeveloped property. Where is this property? Is it in the CBD?4. The remaining 4 buildings in question have no economic life remaining without substantial change. The Imperial Oil building sits on piles that are in the tidal zone, and engineering reports suggst that they are rotting. Excavation will have to occur for this inspection, and quite likley the piles will require replacement. The remaining buildings that housed NSCAD and currently house the Subway restaurant are quite attractive from the outside, but offer little of “Heritage Value” on the interiors.5. The Heritage Trust has suggested that it is less expensive to renovate old buildings rather than build new. This is like suggesting that it would be easier to sitch up your suitcoat rather than purchase a new one…except of course unless you intend on giving the coat to your brother who is 4 sizes larger. My point is that the building could be “renovated” to the same condition much less expensively than the proposed development, but to what end. You can’t market a building like that to commercial tenants; the floor plates are too small and not connected. The purpose of the development is to provide office space while retaining the facade only of the Heritage aspect of the properties.6. Developer’s options: HRM Council have created this situation by the no-vote on the agreement. The Development Agreement was supported by staff, the actual people who understand the rules and regulations of the system. For the Heritage Trust or HRM Council to suggest that the Armour Group should spend more money and give it another shot is ridiculous. The Heritage advocates will not support any form of tower on the property, so it is pointless. Armour’s economic model for the development of the property will not support continued attempts to appease the Heritage advocates. The buildings will likely come down as a result of this vote.
Hey halifaxguy67 – your reference #2 to amount of space to be built in CBD.You are dead wrong. Developers have approval or as of right to build 1.3 million aq ft of Class A office space. Suggest you look at the post on Oct 23 ‘Reality bites’.Pay attention. Maybe you should ask why the buildings are not being built; something to do with construction costs and low rents I think. Check out the Class A space being built by Armour group in Burnside.
Colin,I was refering to the claim that recent projects have been approved. I do pay attention. The majority of space that is (as of right) ready to build is on the “triangle” lands at the north end of Granville Street, and owned by ECL; Empire, ie: Sobeys.They are not building for reasons unknown to me, however I would agree that it is linked with construction costs, and low rents. It might also have something to do with the size of the project, approximately 7 times the size of the Armour proposal. Perhaps they are unwilling to accept the risk of building until they can secure an anchor tenant.The other bulk of commercial space is the soon to be new home for Emera.Armour’s new building might not have been constructed, had they not been able to secure Mediave Blue Cross as the anchor tenant. Also, comparing construction in the city of lake business park to the central business district for an entire region is not really apples to apples. Thanks though, I think I will check it out.
halifaxguy67 – the Midtown proposal would have gone ahead except they would not chop off the top 4 storeys of a 17 storey bldng. That and a family row killed that project. On the ECL property, they obviously don’t mind sitting on the land for 30 years. Never heard the Chamber of Commerce complaining about that. And who are the companies deperately looking for this space ?Why does it have to be downtown. Time to think of taking jobs to the people not people to the jobs. Clayton Park, Bedford/Sackville, downtown Dartmouth, Dartmouth Crossing. Cleaner, greener, quicker. Time to change the way we think. Building up the suburbs then expecting them all to commute to the peninsula is uneconomic, as well as disrupting established neighbourhoods to cope with all the traffic.