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In the TD bank at the corner of Spring Garden Road and Birmingham Street, there is a mural-sized photograph of nearby Barrington Street, taken on a warm spring day in 1944. It shows sidewalks crowded with civilians, uniformed CWACs and soldiers on leave. Bright red trolleys roll amongst the cars, flags and awnings hang above dozens of storefronts, and the marquee of the Capitol Theatre is visible in the background.
A small poster of the image also hangs in my shop on Barrington, and people often ask me about it. I explain that it shows the very block we are on, and that if they were passing The Pacific building—in which my store is located—on that day in 1944, they might have been in the photo too. Many people are surprised, since that street lined with shops and restaurants is largely at odds with the current perception of Barrington. But the street’s historical connection to small retail business remains embodied in its design and architecture: in the modest scale of so many of its storefronts, its broad sidewalks and its impracticality for receiving goods in anything but small shipments.
There has been much reflection among planners, business advocates and city politicians upon the causes of Barrington’s decline, and about what can be done to revive it: historical designation, residential/commercial development, the enticement of major retailers. Just wait, we are told, once this or that thing is done, it will be better. There’s no denying that once the cranes and scaffolding are gone, there will be some kind of improvement. But after a decade as a business-owner on Barrington, I’ve grown to share the opinion I hear most often from my customers: that Barrington’s empty storefronts are, at this point, more a cause of its woes than a
symptom.
Yet the sensible question of WHY so many Barrington storefronts are empty is actually rarely addressed. While some spaces are unavailable due to construction or poor condition, many are for lease, and have been for a very long time. Is there really no demand for these spaces? Doesn’t anyone want to open a shop downtown? All those “for lease” signs make it seem that way, but I think you and I know that isn’t the case. I’ve spoken to many retail entrepreneurs who would love a Barrington Street location. But the rents are just too high. If those spaces were affordable for the types of business to which they are most suited, they would be occupied.
But to anyone with an understanding of basic economics, even that explanation will seem incomplete. If something is priced beyond what anyone who wants it can or will pay, isn’t it common sense to lower its price to the level at which it will sell? After all, if you aren’t making money on something, you’re losing money on it, because holding inventory or property costs money. These concepts are fundamental to all types of business—except, it would seem, commercial real estate in Halifax.
I don’t doubt the business acumen of the property owners, so I suspect that there is a reason for which it makes sense to keep these spaces vacant, rather than lease them at a lower price. I would like to know that reason. And I’ll bet you would too. And until that reason is made clear, and addressed, Barrington Street will never be what it was designed to be: a home for small business.
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This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2015.
Nailed it.
Renting to national/international chains does not guarantee payment of rent.
Just ask all the mall owners across Canada who leased space to Target.
Speculators ruined Barrington but you won’t hear Mayor Savage or Don Mills lay blame where it lies.
In the end it’s their property. If they want to try to rent it at exorbitant rents, that’s their right. Seems foolish to me, but the cost to carry these buildings could be very high in terms of energy use etc.
Are you suggesting “just rent it a low cost because retailers can’t afford it?” Sorry, that’s not how it works. It may be easier/cheaper to keep it vacant, however that looks to people driving by, than to have a tenant in there not covering the rent.
Look how great our buildings are doing in places other than Halifax, hmmm we need some tax breaks, oooh look we’ve got buildings in Halifax that aren’t doing so great, because we purposely run the rent super high, we should get a tax break for them, infact we should keep them vacant, and continue to enjoy the tax breaks, we don’t give a shit about Halifax, we don’t even live there, we just buy up buildings, renovate them and then run them purposely at a loss to claim the tax breaks on our other buildings that are not even in Halifax.
I would love to see the Mayor step in on this. Hundreds of thousands of cruise ship tourists come through our city every summer, and other than the waterfront boardwalk they rarely go anywhere other than Barrington St (and Fairview Cemetery for the Titanic connection). If this is all they’re seeing, they’re not coming back. It’s good for the whole city to get Barrington back on track.
It’s not rent, it’s lack of leadership.
The fact that Barrington is full of little mom-and-pop shops and the like is because the economic situation was so poor throughout the 80s to the early 2000s, and downtown was in such rough shape.
Nowadays we have retailers liker Urban Outfitters, Frank and Oak, and so on setting up, major residential projects coming online, plus a generally renewed interest in downtown. It’s pretty obvious that we’re in an in-between phase, between the old, rundown Barrington, and a new, more high-end Barrington, and some property owners are probably biding their time, counting on being able to attract more international or high-end tenants over the next couple of years, after some of the construction is done. Small, quirky little shops will still find a home on streets like Argyle, Blowers, Grafton, and the North End. (And Dartmouth). But the future of Barrington looks increasingly to be major chains and high-end indie boutiques.
Honestly, that’s okay–that’s sort of the role of a city’s main downtown thoroughfare, historically speaking. That’s what Barrington would be now if major retailers hadn’t all set up in suburban malls since the 70s. It’s a tough time because it’s transitional, but I think it’s increasingly obvious that Barrington is going to come out the other end of this construction and upheavel over the next 24-48 months much stronger than it’s been in decades.
As an aside, I don’t think anyone is putting loads of money into renovating buildings for “tax breaks”–that would be economically ludicrous. There have been some really impressive renovations in recent years, and the Pacific Building is being fixed up right now, and these haven’t been done on the cheap. If an absentee landlord is just squatting on a property, they’re not going to invest in it beyond the bare minimum.
One thing that’s super important for Barrington now is to make sure the owner of the Green Lantern Building–who doesn’t seem to understand that he’s sitting on one of the best heritage assets in the whole city–isn’t able to tear down the building, as he’s threatening to do. That would pretty much make a giant mockery of the heritage district, which is itself a big part of why the area is being revitalized in the first place.
Spot on. Why won’t the market adjust itself to fill vacancies? I would show up to hear our downtown planners and developers answer this question. Maybe the next Kate Carmichael Lecture should address this…
“Why does Barrington Street remain barren? “
Who cares. It’s a dump. Just live in the burbs like all the other normal people.
It’s a bus parking lot and smells like pee.
@ Michael Murphy–Skye was an imaginary project that was never going to happen. (And if it did, it would’ve sucked up all the new condo demand in the core for a couple of years and stifled other growth.)
The city scuttled it because it was a ridiculous violation of planning rules, and approval would have led to a every single developer putting projects on hold in an attempt to squeeze out concessions for themselves, and it would have ultimately resulted in the city’s planning regime being rendered irrelevant and turned local development into a free-for-all. Which is not the way development works in any city, nor should it.
Skye was a ridiculous project and we don’t need it–as evidenced by the Roy, the Maple, and numerous other high-rise and mid-rise projects currently being built in the city centre. There are thousands of new residents in the pipeline for downtown. Wait 12 months.
Pigeon – it’s an extremely long transition, considering I’ve been hearing downtown business ‘leaders’ saying that since 2005. And that’s only when I started to pay attention; I suspect they were saying it for some time before that too.
As for the Pacific Building being fixed up: are you sure? Look closer. Is there any work going on above that scaffolding? Or is it just there to hold up the front of the place that has been falling off for years?