General Updates and News

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Empire

Here is a building I would like to see resurrected as part of the Cogswell rebuild. The pedway from Purdy's would have to be relocated or have it go down through the basement. I would like to see 20% of the Cogswell lands dedicated to rebuilding buildings that have been demolished. The customs house would qualify as well although I would like to see it rebuilt where it stood, on the corner of Bedford Row and George.


Pentagon Building - flickr


Source

Customs- the stone building - Vintage Halifax Photos

[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Empire. These are awesome.

The Pentagon building reminds me of the Flatiron in New York or the Gooderham Building in Toronto. A similar landmark building, though Halifax style.

I mean, that shot first shot looks like some picture of Lower Eastside Manhattan.

Customs House was beautiful too.

What a waste to demolish these buildings for that ugly monstrosity at Cogswell. Mindblowing that this was seen as "progress" in the 1960's.

Mad men, indeed.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Well, I think the difference is that it wouldn't be faux—it'd be something to build with real brick and stone, not precast concrete and foam detailing and the like.

I get the concern about being fake-y though. There's a good argument not to rebuild demolished buildings. I fall on the pro-reconstruction side, but only when used sparingly. Otherwise the city becomes a sort of fake-y landscape and you don't know what's original and what's a replica. And of course I want to see modern buildings too.

I think it's a pretty academic discussion in Halifax though, having never heard of any suggestions in this regard beyond this board.

I think it could be done with the right carrots for developers. It would be expensive, yes, so you need to provide some compensation for that added cost. If we made a strict condition of selling the land to a developer that a serious re-build of the Pentagon would be required for any proposal *but* as a compensation or allowance for that requirement, the developer could, elsewhere on the Cogswell land assigned, build higher/taller than usual, with a couple towers. *That* might entice a developer.

Of course, notice how an idea like this is being tossed around on a board that is explicitly named for debating "skyscrapers" and is not growing out of the Nova Scotia Heritage Trust's lively online discussion forum, which, we can all rest assured, would be bustling with similar such ideas, if someone were to actually create it... Maybe once the last few legal cases work their way through the system? Maybe...

[Empire]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

Customs- the stone building - Vintage Halifax Photos

Thanks, Empire. These are awesome.

The Pentagon building reminds me of the Flatiron in New York or the Gooderham Building in Toronto. A similar landmark building, though Halifax style.

I mean, that shot first shot looks like some picture of Lower Eastside Manhattan.

Customs House was beautiful too.

What a waste to demolish these buildings for that ugly monstrosity at Cogswell. Mindblowing that this was seen as "progress" in the 1960's.

Mad men, indeed.[/QUOTE]



Source Pentagon Building - flickr

We rebuilt the church at Africville and the apartment buildting on Summer St. shown below from scratch so it could be done. As well, the round church on Brunswick was 80% rebuilt after a fire.

As Counterfactual points out there could be some serious bonusing for a developer. Build the Pentagon where it used to sit, similar size maybe a few more floors and then allow extra height for another parcel for the same developer. Or, allow a 5 year tax holiday to compensate for an original rebuild.

Summer St. rebuilt from scratch.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.642233,-6...232wWK6jOhkxJybCAkSJ-g&cbp=12,216.4,,0,0

St George's Round Church on Brunswick St.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.65316,-63...6itC2KP7VHqnceKx_G17g&cbp=12,314.27,,0,0

[JET]

We rebuilt the church at Africville and the apartment buildting on Summer St. shown below from scratch so it could be done. As well, the round church on Brunswick was 80% rebuilt after a fire.

As Counterfactual points out there could be some serious bonusing for a developer. Build the Pentagon where it used to sit, similar size maybe a few more floors and then allow extra height for another parcel for the same developer. Or, allow a 5 year tax holiday to compensate for an original rebuild.

Summer St. rebuilt from scratch.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.642233,-6...232wWK6jOhkxJybCAkSJ-g&cbp=12,216.4,,0,0

St George's Round Church on Brunswick St.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.65316,-63...6itC2KP7VHqnceKx_G17g&cbp=12,314.27,,0,0[/QUOTE]

Summer Street was not a complete rebuild from scratch, technically they were required to maintain a 'one inch' thickness of board depth for the facade, nothing in front and nothing behind, most bizarre.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Empire

We rebuilt the church at Africville and the apartment buildting on Summer St. shown below from scratch so it could be done. As well, the round church on Brunswick was 80% rebuilt after a fire.

As Counterfactual points out there could be some serious bonusing for a developer. Build the Pentagon where it used to sit, similar size maybe a few more floors and then allow extra height for another parcel for the same developer. Or, allow a 5 year tax holiday to compensate for an original rebuild.

Summer St. rebuilt from scratch.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.642233,-6...232wWK6jOhkxJybCAkSJ-g&cbp=12,216.4,,0,0

St George's Round Church on Brunswick St.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=44.65316,-63...6itC2KP7VHqnceKx_G17g&cbp=12,314.27,,0,0

As Jet points out, all that remains of the Summer Street apt. is part of the original façade. If you compare what is there now to the original building (which I couldn't find a photo of) you will see that there is little of the character of the original building left. A very poor job that is more "faux heritage" than anything, IMHO.

Here is a link to the Halifax History website that shows how little of the original building was used:

http://www.halifaxhistory.ca/GardenCrest.htm

The other structures mentioned are wooden structures and in some cases the rebuild occurred largely due to donation funding.

St. John's Anglican in Lunenburg was an amazing rebuild of the wooden structure, but again funding mostly from donations at a cost of around $7 million.

http://www.stjohnslunenburg.org/restoration/index.html

I don't know what the cost would be to do a stone structure, but in this day and age, the skillset required to do it properly has all but disappeared, because modern building techniques have streamlined the process and made it much cheaper in the process. Builders don't do stone structures anymore.

I don't like to be the negative guy, because truth be told if they actually did do a project like this I'd probably be one of the happiest guys on this forum.

Anybody have an idea of the cost of building from stone vs glass, steel and concrete these days?

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

Customs House was beautiful too.

What a waste to demolish these buildings for that ugly monstrosity at Cogswell. Mindblowing that this was seen as "progress" in the 1960's.

Mad men, indeed.

Customs House demo had nothing to do with Cogswell.

IIRC, the Feds knocked it down to create the parking lot/loading bay area for the Dominion of Canada building.

[Ziobrop]

Originally Posted by kph06

I drove by the Lead Formwork yard in Goodwood and there is a new to Halifax red and white Potain flat top tower crane in pieces in the yard just like the third crane at the Nova Centre. This is the fourth new or nearly new crane for them in about a year and a half.

Wonder if this one is bound for the Roy? or the Maple? or both.

[JET]

Interesting thread: The Canadian Destroyed Buildings Thread II, including some local conrtibutors http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=194156

[musicman]

If it was the crane that i saw on the way to NB last week there were more than enough pieces to put up 2 tall cranes or 3 or 4 somewhat shorter... i may have missed a cab or 2 as well i was at the Big Stop for a bit

[Empire]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Customs House demo had nothing to do with Cogswell.

IIRC, the Feds knocked it down to create the parking lot/loading bay area for the Dominion of Canada building.

Then it's settled! We get the Feds to rebuild the Customs House................

[kph06]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

Wonder if this one is bound for the Roy? or the Maple? or both.

Probably a good bet to see it up at the Maple. Ellis Don is the General Contractor and they used Lead for both the Nova Centre and TD Building. A contract like the Maple would be a good way to justify the expense of a new crane to replace older stock. Lead has also taken over more ground in Goodwood, a couple of the older, orange cranes are stored across Mills Rd. from their usual lay down yard.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by JET

Interesting thread: The Canadian Destroyed Buildings Thread II, including some local conrtibutors http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=194156

Browsed that, interesting. Actually made me feel better. Nothing close to the kind of losses that other Canadian cities experienced is at risk in Halifax currently. The only thing close is the Dennis Building, which is a lousy building but I can understand why some like the look of it. But really, when you compare the losses in places like Winnipeg, Hamilton (!), Montreal and Toronto with our crummy little 2-storey wood boxes you can see we are not so badly off.

[JET]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Browsed that, interesting. Actually made me feel better. Nothing close to the kind of losses that other Canadian cities experienced is at risk in Halifax currently. The only thing close is the Dennis Building, which is a lousy building but I can understand why some like the look of it. But really, when you compare the losses in places like Winnipeg, Hamilton (!), Montreal and Toronto with our crummy little 2-storey wood boxes you can see we are not so badly off.

It's good to see that you're looking on the bright side of things.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Browsed that, interesting. Actually made me feel better. Nothing close to the kind of losses that other Canadian cities experienced is at risk in Halifax currently. The only thing close is the Dennis Building, which is a lousy building but I can understand why some like the look of it. But really, when you compare the losses in places like Winnipeg, Hamilton (!), Montreal and Toronto with our crummy little 2-storey wood boxes you can see we are not so badly off.

Hamilton was absolutely ludicrous. By far the worst. Forget buildings, they bulldozed countless entire city blocks, with really nothing replacing...

Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, pretty bad too.

That said, Halifax should thank its lucky stars that the Cogswell waterfront express was stopped. Massive chunks of historical properties would have been destroyed had it gone through. We'd look much, much, worse on that thread.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Customs House demo had nothing to do with Cogswell.

IIRC, the Feds knocked it down to create the parking lot/loading bay area for the Dominion of Canada building.

A parking lot?

[Duff]

Originally Posted by Ziobrop

Wonder if this one is bound for the Roy? or the Maple? or both.

I'm not sure where it's going but I heard that they will painting it yellow to match the rest of their new cranes before putting it up. Apparently it was shipped in from Portugal.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

A parking lot?

This:

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

Hamilton was absolutely ludicrous. By far the worst. Forget buildings, they bulldozed countless entire city blocks, with really nothing replacing...

Vancouver, Toronto, Victoria, pretty bad too.

That said, Halifax should thank its lucky stars that the Cogswell waterfront express was stopped. Massive chunks of historical properties would have been destroyed had it gone through. We'd look much, much, worse on that thread.

We traded off the tourist-trap Historic Properties, which by all accounts has been a massive failure commercially, for decades of air pollution and noise from tied-up traffic. When you look at Water St south of Duke there isn't anything particularly historic there except for one building used by the MMA. My jury is still out as to what we've saved versus what we've lost.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

We traded off the tourist-trap Historic Properties, which by all accounts has been a massive failure commercially, for decades of air pollution and noise from tied-up traffic. When you look at Water St south of Duke there isn't anything particularly historic there except for one building used by the MMA. My jury is still out as to what we've saved versus what we've lost.

Well, I'm writing this from the fourth floor of the Collins Bank Building, where my company maintains a very cool and very effective (thoroughly modern) office space. I wouldn't trade a great historical space like this for a sleek office tower, though I guess some would.

Anyway, the Properties have not been a "massive" failure commercially, though I definitely agree they tend to the kitschy/cheesy side of things, and they could do with a big-time refresh of both the retail mix and the interior design. But destroy the buildings, and you destroy that potential. Also important is that the warehouse buildings really do provide a physical link to a seafaring/privateering past that simply would not exist otherwise. They're an important physical manifestation of one of the city's most important historical roles. Pretty much every other building tied to that trade is gone.

And I don't think most Haligonians would agree the jury is still out on Cogswell/Harbour Drive. The overall consensus is that Cogswell was bad, and Harbour Drive would've been worse. Forget the buildings on Lower Water (indeed, most of them are gone anyway) and simply consider the incredibly successful waterfront stroll, which would be impossible had we built Harbour Drive. That IS a hugely successful piece of civic infrastructure.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

We traded off the tourist-trap Historic Properties, which by all accounts has been a massive failure commercially, for decades of air pollution and noise from tied-up traffic. When you look at Water St south of Duke there isn't anything particularly historic there except for one building used by the MMA. My jury is still out as to what we've saved versus what we've lost.

I agree Historic Properties could be doing better, but that's not the buildings fault. It's crappy planning and the lack of any new *residential* development downtown, nor mass transit to bring more people into that area beyond tourist season.

Now that there is a chance for more people living on and around Barrington, right in the core, I think Historical Properties has a much better chance, for mixed retail, not just tourist stuff.