[Halifax] Southport Halifax | 21 m | 6 fl | Complete
 

Killam Properties is planning a $30M, 6-7 storey mixed condo and rental building at 1065 Barrington that will contain 150 units. It's going to replace two little buildings between the Superstore and the Tim Hortons. Hopefully the Superstore and Tim Hortons will be redeveloped someday too.

There's also the development site at Barrington and Kent so that neighbourhood may change pretty noticeably over the next few years.

Nice! :D This end of Barrington is starting to get some decent residential density. At some point there may be a tempting business case for redeveloping the Superstore.

I wonder if this rumoured proposal will have commercial space as well?

Praise Jeebus. An ideal site.

I wonder what such a development might contribute to Barrington--the old housesacross the street form a commercial streetwall. It would be nice for that storefront character to be mirrored in any new construction, extending Barrington's high-street function further south.

Not sure if it will have commercial but it is easy to imagine the far southern end of Barrington being like the Morris Street area today. It already has a decent mix of mid-sized buildings and shops.

Having more secondary commercial areas like that would make the city feel a lot larger and a lot more interesting. Halifax is lucky that it has so many well laid out streets that it can grow into like this. The equivalent of the south end of Barrington would be out in the bungalow belt of all but a few Canadian cities, and areas like that are much harder to improve upon incrementally.

Looks like a great development that will replace 2 unremarkable buildings. Excellent! :tup:

Questions regarding your redeveloping Superstore comment:
- Doesn't a store such as this support further residential growth in the area by making a walkable grocery run possible for the many local residents?

- Or, are you simply suggesting that replacing the existing Superstore and parking lot with a mixed retail (grocery) / residential complex would be a better use of the land?

The reason I ask is that, other than the undesirable "look" of a sprawling grocery store and parking lot, it seems to serve the local community very well.

Here is a rendering of Southport:

http://www.southporthalifax.com/imag...Rendering1.jpg
Source

That's a decent little building for that end of town. Some more at grade retail down here would do wonders for the neighbourhood too!

I like it. It's simple and almost reminds me of 50's/60's modern buildings. I wish this sort of style would have become popular in Halifax a long time ago.

I like it a lot too. It does have a sort of mid-century modern thing going on, like a contemporary reclad of a modernist building.

As usual, sidewalk interaction isn't amazing. Rather than one large, property-spanning storefront, I'd like to see it split in two--more business opportunity, and more amenable to small businesses. Given the size of the space and the location a little off the pedestrian beaten path, we're probably not too likely to see any unique or interesting shops in there. (Hello, Starbucks, or something along those lines.)

But that's a small quibble, overall. Nice to see even small-scale projects getting better and better designed. This would be an above-par project in any city.

I suppose it's great if you want to look like you live in a shipping container:yuck:

Get rid of the "rainbow" cladding on the ends and it would look considerably better in my eyes.

Maybe shipping-container-chic is what they are going for:koko:

:haha:

C'mon. It's different! And the location is amazing.

I wonder how decent the view will be from the 6th floor.

I'm almost positive that's what their going for, and there's nothing crazy about it IMO. I actually hope more proposals like it come about. There's just something oddly contemporary about it and I think it would be a great trend to start near the container port :).

They definitely are. This is from their website:

"Halifax's first loft-style condo development is a nod to the city's rich shipping industry - and an exciting indication of things to come. Located in the historic South End, with downtown just minutes away to the north, and the port and Point Pleasant Park a short walk to the south, Southport is designed to be reminiscent of shipping containers, for an old-school industrial look that's new, urban, and unabashedly modern"

I don't buy it for a second. Translation goes something like this. Let's build a very cheap building in a very prime part of town, use cheap tin siding, a basic building form, no street presence and worst of all, leave the street level exposed columns in their - right out of the concrete form stage and call it modernistic. Someone will buy it because of its location. This building will require a lot of maintenance in five years. UV damaged tin etc. If you look at true modernistic architecture you will find quality materials and in Halifax you will find bottom of the barrel materials such as the Spice building.

WOW. Not a fan, I guess?

I disagree on the building form--I think it's just fine. Like I said above, it's not perfect, but it's elegant, at least. And I have no qualms with the street presence, except that those support columns are a bit ungainly.

I'm willing to extend the developer some credit, since they're a fairly major developer in Ontario (this is their first foray into the Maritimes). They have a solid reputation out there.

Anyway, I don't think there's any way to tell if the cladding materials will be cheap or not, either, but based on the recent trend in the city, I'd be optimistic. This kind of thing is a huge, huge, huge step up from the recent past. (Like Theatre Lofts, or this lamentable shitheap.)

It's definitely a step up from the rest of the South Barrington neighbourhood. :)

The exposed columns columns could turn out ugly but there are cases of them working well. The main thing I would change is the colour of the top "container". I think it blends in too well with the bottom one and a sharper contrast would be more interesting visually (think light brown). Also the two strips that run through the middle section of the building should stand out (a nice dark colour like navy blue). This would completely change the structural requirements of the buildings but actual repainted shipping containers would be AWESOME!

Ding, Ding! We have a winner!

The design, to look like shipping containers is hackneyed and clichéd IMHO.

Not much different than the thought process that was behind the lighthouses at Trillium.

That is a bit of a steamer isnt it:yuck:

What's the reasoning behind the massive setback for the resi portion?

(There was a thought process behind the lighthouses?) :runaway:

Except that it doesn't look like a Junior High metal shop project, which the Trillium "art" does.

They could have stacked a bunch of ATCO mobile office trailers together, with sliding windows and all. But they went with this, and it's a nice fit.

Here's the location: http://goo.gl/maps/1P1Lf

It is pretty much literally shacks located between a drive-through Tim Horton's and a big box store. Peninsula Place is a pretty big step down architecturally too.

The neighbourhood has a lot of potential though. Eventually I hope Barrington and Inglis takes on the same sort of feel, mix of businesses, and activity level that Barrington and Morris has now.