Posted Apr 25, 2014, 8:58 PM
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opinionated so and so
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Halifax, NS
Posts: 721
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Convention centre debate must move on
Alright folks - it would be super if you put all that "Waye is anti development" stuff behind you and go comment about this project on the Herald website...
Quote:
Convention centre debate must move on
A couple of years ago, I was a vocal opponent of the P3 convention centre proposal for a bunch of reasons that simply no longer matter.
Why? Because on July 10, 2012, Halifax regional council approved an agreement with the provincial government regarding the new convention centre. Anyone who asked me about the convention centre during the 2012 election heard me say “an agreement was signed, and that ship has sailed.”
On Tuesday, regional council will hold a public hearing to consider two very important elements of the proposed convention centre: the proposed closure of Grafton Street where it goes through the convention centre site and changes to the buildings themselves.
The office tower on Argyle Street is proposed to be taller and wider than the original design while the street wall on Market Street is proposed to be shorter. The convention centre itself is no longer below grade and will now stretch over Grafton.
Do the positives of the new design outweigh the negatives? We want to hear from you. But let’s be clear, Tuesday’s public hearing is not an opportunity to cancel the convention centre. The only things under consideration are the closure of Grafton Street and the exterior height and massing of the buildings.
To cancel the convention centre now will result in an unfinished hole in the heart of downtown for many years, not to mention untold reputational risk and expensive legal wrangling.
I also need to address where we stand under the HRMByDesign downtown plan. The downtown plan includes provisions to “enable the development of a new publicly-sponsored convention centre together with retail, hotel, residential or office, and underground parking space on the two blocks bounded by Argyle Street, Prince Street, Market Street and Sackville Street.”
Moving the ballroom out of the basement has changed the building enough that regional council must consider whether to amend the planning documents and the land-use bylaw, and amendments to the downtown plan are recommended from time to time. Council has a duty to measure the current proposal against the proposal it already approved in 2009.
A third notion circulating in recent weeks is that the convention centre might be built without the accompanying office tower and hotel, which would wipe out the taxes that the municipality is relying on to cover the cost of building and operating the facility.
The agreement mentioned above requires that “the hotel and office tower will each be substantially completed to core and shell on the date the facility is substantially completed.” In short, no money flows from the city until the project is built.
The final issue is that the convention centre is going to be smaller than what was proposed as originally required in the provinces request for proposals.
The client rentable space will still be 120,000 square feet as outlined in the provincial request for proposals (RFP), which is in addition to the “back of house” space.
None of this is to say my support is unconditional — far from it. The convention centre must be 120,000 square feet. It has to be functional and high-quality. The office tower must be built. The hotel must be built. If these conditions cannot be met, then the contract is not met, and my support for the project is gone.
But right now, this is not about refighting 2012 over and over again. The municipality is going to hold up its end of the deal, and our partners will do the same. What I really want is to hear from you about what you think about these two important issues, Grafton Street and the building design.
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http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1203133-convention-centre-debate-must-move-on
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