Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
The block on Granville across from Province House that includes One Government Place and the Dennis Bldg is owned by the province. They had plans at one point to redevelop the entire thing into office space that in general design terms looked like OGP on the exterior and in fact connected to that building. I believe they were counting on demolishing the existing structures in order to create a substantial amount of underground parking to get cars out of the area in and around Province House, which now is probably not in the cards. They were also going to close Granville and make that some sort of public space to also help better showcase Province House.
Don't hold your breath for any of that now.
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Thanks for some great info, Keith.
How many years back were those plans? 5-10years ago? Or more recent, under the NDP government?
Seems to me the Provincial Government, moreso than any other level of government, is the biggest offender for sitting idly by on prime real estate downtown, doing nothing.
Given that the Province is constantly bleating about deficits and debts, you'd think that generating revenue by selling off some prime real estate for private development would be a no brainer, the same way the City does. The only explanation I can come up with for why this doesn't happen, was simply a product of provincial politics, which has, up until maybe the last 10 years, been largely rurally oriented; basically, most provincial governments (particularly Conservative and Liberal ones) were elected in rural Nova Scotia. So no one really cared about a vacant lot in downtown Halifax, and even if they did, it was some "locals who voted NDP anyways". Halifax, finally, is on the map, because it's nearing 50% of the province's population. It's nearly impossible to elect a government without Halifax. Perhaps we'll see more activism from this government, hoping to solidify seats it took from the NDP in Halifax, for hereon.
But yeah, I'm not holding my breath...
(At the very least, provincial *corporations* like the Waterfront Dev Corp is finally moving, having hired Andy Filmore last year (I believe it was 2013))