[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by someone123

The residential construction might drive a bit of office demand in the long run. Transportation options into downtown Halifax aren't great so locating housing nearby is the next-best thing. This has been playing out in lots of larger cities around North America. More and more professionals prefer to live in the city for one reason or another and so high-value office jobs are moving downtown. This trend might be playing out already in Halifax but may just be hidden by the fact that there are also public-sector employers that are far behind the times and less competitive. DHX corporate offices for example are on Spring Garden Road, not in an office park in Bedford.

Residents create more demand for retail space than office workers. The Scotia Square model of office towers plus a mall never really panned out anywhere except areas that are also major transportation hubs.

I think the office glut in Halifax is itself a bit overblown. The new buildings have attracted marquee tenants. The older buildings will tend to lose those tenants, but why do we expect that a 30-50+ year old office building must always attract tenants willing to pay prime rates? It is healthy for the city for those buildings to move downmarket and attract tenants who cannot pay as much. One example of this is Volta Labs moving into the Maritime Centre.

The story with businesses moving from Argyle or Barrington to Gottingen is similar. The city would be way more interesting and much better off if Barrington-Argyle were the higher-end area with more chains and Gottingen were a more developed alternative retail area for mom and pops and the like.

The yin and the yang.