Louis Lawen’s Dexel Developments is moving forward with plans to build a new building at the corner of Quinpool Road and Beech Street. As sketched in an ad on Kijiji (no longer live), the building will consist of a 2,000 square-foot first floor, envisioned as a coffeeshop, and an equally sized second floor office space. The first floor is listed at $5,000 per month, the second floor at $2,500 per month.
By itself, the development is unremarkable—it is an “as right” development that fits into the Quinpool districts C-1 zoning regulations. But there are two issues that may present problems.
First, the building is slated for what is now the parking lot used by the Halifax Veterinary Clinic and Planet Organic. A site plan shows that only the row of parking spaces immediately in front of those storefronts will remain, and they’ll lose about 75 percent of the existing spaces. Neither business returned phone calls for comment, which is unsurprising as they also rent from Lawen.
The second issue may be more problematic for the wider neighbourhood: plans show the coffeeshop having a drive-thru, with cars entering on Beech Street and exiting onto the already stop-and-go Quinpool.
“Those plans are just conceptional,” says Dexel’s Crystal Sutherland, the agent handling the lease. “It depends on if the renter wants a drive-thru.”
“That would more-than-likely require a traffic impact study, because that would generate more than 100 vehicles [per day], and that’s the cut-off,” says Ashley Blissett, a development engineer with the city. “Since it’s at a location where it’s already congested, and we have a set of signals, we’d be requiring them to provide us with more information.”
Dexel hasn’t yet acquired a building permit for the development. The Kijiji ad says it will take six months to build.
This article appears in Jan 6-12, 2011.
boy,thats what halifax really needs,another coffee shop…why can’t businesses think outside the box….open something that will drive people down quinpool…i can get a coffee anywhere in halifax….ill be avoiding that business….
“Halifax sux! They don’t build buildings! no…wait… They build buildings we don’t want! ARG! Boycott Starbucks! etc etc”
Although Planet Organic are a bunch of dinks for a million reasons*, this development still makes no sense. The parking lot is a mess already and it’s really difficult to turn out onto Quinpool Road from it now.
I’m guessing the Lawens and PO/HVH have something they can’t agree on, and the Lawens are trying to make a point. What a way to make it.
*The car booting thing was just one shortlived and very stupid idea. I saw them boot a car of a patron too. Not cool.
I thought PO people were all ’bout “doing the right thing” and biked everywhere on 1000-2500 City Bikes, not cars? What do they need a parking lot for?
Bousquet, not too sure about the claim “they’ll lose about 75 percent of the existing spaces”.
Looking at aerial imagery in Bing Maps, it looks like the lot currently has about ~40 spaces. The site plan shows the removal of about 10, and doesn’t show the northern end of the lot, which has another row which presumably will stay.
They ought to redevelop the entire lot. Quinpool isn’t the right street for drive-throughs OR parking lots. If we let these sorts of car-oriented developments dominate it’ll begin to look more like Dunbrack or Sackville Drive.
Whoa! The car booting had NOTHING to do with Planet!
That was orchestrated by the same moron who owns the lot. I’m pretty sure the only reason it stopped was because Planet complained.
While they’re at it they should have the McDees Drive thru exit onto Pepperill. I hate biking past that. No collisions yet but it still isn’t fun.
These comments are so silly. It’s just a concept used by the developer to sell the space. Every developer envisions a cafe in proposed developments.
I agree with Calvin, we shouldn’t have any parking lots of Quinpool. The parking lots don’t make it a destination, the shops and services do.
People, people, people, let’s not lose our cool. this is for Profit, taxes and expansionism. oh wait – Profit or neighbourhood? Profit of course, who cares about what the silly public wants! Taxes? let’s not forget most corporations have very very good accountants. Besides we can always raise the neighbourhood taxes to support silly ideas. Expansionism? Of course we must expand and keep expanding even if there is no real purpose behind the expansion. who cares about bike riders (most people who drive don’t), who cares about auto drivers (insurance companies? we can charge more after an accident). Build more. build more!!! Spring Garden Road needs all the silly competition it can get. lynne
Sorry to dash your fantasy Bananaa (my fave fruit btw), but it was the manager out there telling off the patrons, while their hired gun booted their wheel. The staff were mortified, indeed. We all stood there for 30 min and watched the whole thing go down. The boot guy only came IF someone called him. Who do you think that was?
Anyways, they are horrible nonetheless, for many reasons, and I would love to see a competitor come in.
I live about 8 houses away on the same block of Beech, and it sounds like a bit of a nightmare, both traffic flow wise and parking wise. Forget what Gordon Gecko said, Greed is NOT good. With a Tim Horton’s right across the street, and Planet Organic also selling hot coffee, why put a cafe there? The logic is beyond me.
I suppose if the property owner wants to get more use from his property, he could put a second story on the existing building, but the logic of removing parking spaces from the lot while at the same time increasing traffic is beyond me too. And a drive through at that intersection? Insane!
Wow. This is a bad, bad idea for that area. How the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks will there be any room for people to get their pet to the vet or to pick up their healthy goodness? I didn’t realize Halifax had such a shortage of land that developers now basically have to build on top of their existing parcels of land. I hope council nixes this, and fast.
westendboy, I don’t like this either, but you’re against it for all the wrong reasons.