Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain
After some debate, during which most councillors said "I don't want to demolish this building," they voted for the motion anyway. So unless something extraordinary happens, it's probably toast. I understand why the building has been hard to repurpose--to Mason's points, the surrounding park is a burial site and it's pretty difficult to expand or renovate the building in any meaningful way as a result--but it really strikes me as a failure of imagination nonetheless. What's more galling is that, also according to Mason, it could cost almost as much to demolish as to restore, because of the difficulty of operating demolition equipment in the site, because it's a huge unmarked grave. To spend all that money and end up with literally nothing is far from a great outcome.
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I would expect nothing less from that lot which is our shameful Council, rubber-stamping the wish list of the staff that actually makes all the bad decisions we are afflicted with.
I’m certain that the building would be expensive and difficult to renovate, though why it would need to be expanded escapes me. Regardless, HRM’s gold-plated designer library across the street shows that money is seldom a problem for HRM when they get a bee in their bonnet to do something. What any new purpose might be - a municipal museum using material from the vast HRM Archives might be nice - something more appropriate for that site could surely be found. It is already a park of sorts as has been noted here so not much needs to be done on that front, and it most certainly should not be allowed to become a tent city again. But the motion’s passage makes me think the nabobs within the ivory towers of HRM already have decided it’s fate.