Construction permit has been issued for this project. Listed as $12.8 million / 13 units / 7 floors.

Sidewalk easement is in place and excavator is on site and working. This is now under construction.

It looks like the 7th floor will be for mechanical purposes and the first floor will have some commercial space, so we're talking about 13 units over 5, perhaps 5 1/2 floors. Those units are going to be huge. They will be expensive no doubt. The developers must have done their homework and ascertained that the demand was there.

It will fill out that corner on Hollis Street very nicely.

J

Apparently the construction budget for this one is circa $1 million per door. Those are going to be some fancy-pants rentals!

I thought I had heard that even before the released units in The Alexander most of the top floors were already spoken for and therefore had some custom build. So I guess there is a desire for some very upscale rental units in this area.

Speaking of, looks like there's quite a few units for lease in the Alexander right now, including a 1 bedroom for the same rent I paid in 2019. My guess is this construction might have a little bit to do with it.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/a33fb38f...31cfd87b71.jpg
Halifax Developments Blog (Photo by David Jackson)

Understatement..they are bleeding vacancy and to add insult to injury they are not advertising on all the top sites theyt should be - so high vacancy caused by covid, time of year, construction, and not enough ads in place to generate the volume they need to combat it.

This is odd, based on the general consensus being that there still aren't enough units in Halifax to meet the demand and people having trouble finding units. I assume that this might be due to the high price of the units in the building?

Price is a part absolutely, but not being on 3 of the top 4 advertising sites (which only cost $60-100 per site/month) puts them in a tough spot where they are not generating the leads they need to even identify if price is an issue. With kijiji as their main source of ads 85% of the possible leads available to them are going to competition.

I thought it could be that, but it looks like the rents aren't stratospheric. Available apartments start at $1,570 for a one-bedroom, and once you consider the location, the inclusion of utilities like heat in the price, and the fact that it's one of the newer/prestige builds, that seems not outrageous at all.

I paid about 1425 when I was there a couple years ago. For what you get it’s not a terrible price, but they’re definitely hungrier to fill units. Fewer students may have opened up some cheaper options for folks, and folks paying $2000+ may have decided to get something with a yard through the pandemic.

I have seen a couple apartments posted on Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji, but generally don’t see much from REITs on there. The only one that posts rentals on sites like that seems to be Universal and they do it incessantly.

Looks like crane base is in?

https://i.imgur.com/lGVnZ5J.jpg
Source

That was fast?!?!

I did not take the picture and was not there. Maybe they just put a crane segment upright on the ground? Probably the installed crane base though. :)

I'd expect this one to have comparatively little excavation since it's small and there are so few units. Maybe just 1 basement level? It could even be close to or at grade with the alley.

According to the site plans this doesn't really have a basement. The backside of the development faces Ironstone Lane and has a residential entrance and 16 parking stalls. Really no excavation is needed for this project considering most of it was levelled years ago to be used as construction staging for The Alexander.

I moved back to Halifax in September 2020 and was very interested in the Alexander. Unfortunately trying to determine what units/floor plans were available turned me off. I had to constantly contact the rental agent to get information (I had looked at the Alexander in February and was looking to rent a unit while in Ontario) and ultimately decided that if the service offered to a potential tenant was that bad I could only imagine how poorly I’d be treated as a tenant.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/1a812c4d...aaa993d370.jpg
Halifax Developments Blog (Photo by David Jackson)

Crane tower was being installed yesterday

Interesting, based on NS Webams it looks like the Breton Street crane.