[Halifax] Nova Centre | 65-58-58 m | 16-15-14 fl | Completed

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Wouldn't the natural progression of things involve some of the older buildings losing office tenants to some of the newer buildings, which then opens up the opportunity to repurpose them to other uses? The Radisson Hotel Hilton Doubletree Suites on Hollis was formerly office space. The former Canada Permanent building where Starbucks and Durty Nellys are on the ground floors became apartments. If, for example, one of the Purdy's Towers lost a significant number of office tenants, it could become a killer condo development. Same with the Homburg Building up on Brunswick.

Yes. The part of downtown that's dominated by office towers could use some more residents. The older office buildings are also a great asset to cities because they provide affordable space for up and coming businesses. Buildings like the former Royal Bank tower could serve that purpose.

I'm not sure how many conversions we'll really see though. It would be completely realistic to imagine these buildings filling up over the next few years. This is not a Dubai type situation, it's just a couple of moderately-sized office buildings. The office construction happening right now is much more modest than what happened in the 1980's in Halifax and those buildings did not sit empty even though the economy tanked in the 90's.

[Drybrain]

I mean there's no doubt there's a problem. Halifax is the only city besides London where the downtown vacancy is higher than the suburban rate. That's not due to a normal market; that's due to artificially cheap office park sprawl. And it's a problem that affects not only the vitality of downtown, but also where people choose to live to be in proximity to work.

It's a real problem, but to respond to it with "downtown is dying and doomed" is, like, christ, come on.

[Empire]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

That's excellent you were fighting that fight, back then Colin. Much to your credit.

Really gross and irresponsible stuff.

What we need is:

(1) a moratorium on new office space outside the core. London ON has done this, to great success to help their previously suffering downtown core.
(2) a significant business park tax imposed on offices out in Burnside and elsewhere.

This will level the playing field. HRM has subsidized this crappy business parks for decades; time for the pendulum to swing the other way.

I would allow development in the parks to continue as is. There is a certain type of office environment that is attracted to suburban office parks line EON Square. What I would also do, is lower the commercial tax rate for office buildings in the downtown core, to ensure there is no hollowing out of DT. If that spurs major office growth DT then jack the tax rate and grandfather the buildings with the lower rate......

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Empire

I would allow development in the parks to continue as is. There is a certain type of office environment that is attracted to suburban office parks line EON Square. What I would also do, is lower the commercial tax rate for office buildings in the downtown core, to ensure there is no hollowing out of DT. If that spurs major office growth DT then jack the tax rate and grandfather the buildings with the lower rate......

I agree with Empire. Encourage office growth in the downtown through tax breaks but don't try to discourage it in the business parks/suburbs. The Greater Toronto Area has office space throughout the GTA; Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, North York ... I don't think that having almost everyone working in downtown Halifax is good for traffic patterns. If people want to work close to where they live then so be it, even if it means having offices in Bedford.

I think in the long run, having addition residents in downtown Halifax will lead to more retail and office space requirements.

London, Ontario is quite a bit different than Halifax since the downtown is located in the centre surrounded by the city so it is easy to service by transit. Halifax has the harbour and peninsula to contend with.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

I agree with Empire. Encourage office growth in the downtown through tax breaks but don't try to discourage it in the business parks/suburbs. The Greater Toronto Area has office space throughout the GTA; Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, North York ... I don't think that having almost everyone working in downtown Halifax is good for traffic patterns. If people want to work close to where they live then so be it, even if it means having offices in Bedford.

I think in the long run, having addition residents in downtown Halifax will lead to more retail and office space requirements.

London, Ontario is quite a bit different than Halifax since the downtown is located in the centre surrounded by the city so it is easy to service by transit. Halifax has the harbour and peninsula to contend with.

I still think it should be somewhat discouraged ..not sure in what means but I think keeping a thriving CBD is essential to the health of a city.

[Drybrain]

I've been told that Halifax is the only Canadian city where less than 50 percent of the office space is in the suburbs, (it was 58% in 1998, and had declined to 48% in 1997...can't find more recent numbers.)

But I just tried to find some info on Toronto, and the numbers I found were: 70 million sq.ft downtown, and 200 million in the GTA. So that's only 35% downtown in Toronto.

So now I'm wondering, when we say we're the only city with under 50% downtown, are we comparing apples to apples (i.e., HRM and GTA) or apples to oranges (i.e., HRM and City of Toronto)?

And finally, does anyone actually KNOW what the relative downtown vs. suburban ratio of office space is in Halifax today, and in other cities?

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Empire

I would allow development in the parks to continue as is. There is a certain type of office environment that is attracted to suburban office parks line EON Square. What I would also do, is lower the commercial tax rate for office buildings in the downtown core, to ensure there is no hollowing out of DT. If that spurs major office growth DT then jack the tax rate and grandfather the buildings with the lower rate......

Originally Posted by fenwick16

I agree with Empire. Encourage office growth in the downtown through tax breaks but don't try to discourage it in the business parks/suburbs. The Greater Toronto Area has office space throughout the GTA; Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, North York ... I don't think that having almost everyone working in downtown Halifax is good for traffic patterns. If people want to work close to where they live then so be it, even if it means having offices in Bedford.

I think in the long run, having addition residents in downtown Halifax will lead to more retail and office space requirements.

London, Ontario is quite a bit different than Halifax since the downtown is located in the centre surrounded by the city so it is easy to service by transit. Halifax has the harbour and peninsula to contend with.

I see what you're both saying, but disagree.

I just don't think a a few tax breaks for downtown commercial will come anywhere near close to fix this rot. We're talking years and years of Government subsidies for business parks. And that is on top of failing to invest in transit. Exactly as Fenwick has said: there's still the harbor and peninsula. So, there should be an added cost to doing business in the business parks, a luxury tax, given we have to maintain roads and infrastructure out to those parks, all which cost the city. You would need either a full moratorium on taxes downtown to make the difference (not going to happen); so you need to also impose a tax on the big box / biz parks.

On a moratorium on additional new office space in the business parks, today, there's more than enough capacity in all of our ridiculous # of business parks (for a small city, we sure do seem to have a lot of them) for any businesses that prefer a suburban setting. And if there is demand for what is left, even better, to drive up prices and further level the playing field. Again, this is about righting historical wrongs-- literally decades of the City favoring business parks. Now it is time to make up for that, in the next decades.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I've been told that Halifax is the only Canadian city where less than 50 percent of the office space is in the suburbs, (it was 58% in 1998, and had declined to 48% in 1997...can't find more recent numbers.)

But I just tried to find some info on Toronto, and the numbers I found were: 70 million sq.ft downtown, and 200 million in the GTA. So that's only 35% downtown in Toronto.

So now I'm wondering, when we say we're the only city with under 50% downtown, are we comparing apples to apples (i.e., HRM and GTA) or apples to oranges (i.e., HRM and City of Toronto)?

And finally, does anyone actually KNOW what the relative downtown vs. suburban ratio of office space is in Halifax today, and in other cities?

No, we're terrible compared to comparator cities, big and small, across the country.

Check out this 2013 study: "The Value of Investing in Canadian Downtowns" by Canadian Urban Institute.

https://www.ida-downtown.org/eweb/docs/ValueInvCanDwtn13.pdf

We finish last (10th) out of the 10 cities studied.

Written about in the Herald: http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/10...wntown-needs-more-office-space-residents

Quote:

The 10 cities, which included large centres like Vancouver and Toronto and regional hubs like Fredericton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, were evaluated on five key areas: visibility, visionary, prosperity, livability and strategy.

A lack of office space and a limited number of people living downtown were highlighted as current challenges for Halifax while the presence of successful public and private partnerships, like the Strategic Urban Partnership, were applauded.

With only 46 per cent of the city’s office space in downtown Halifax, this put the municipality in 10th place when compared to cities like Edmonton, Winnipeg and London, which had 65, 77 and 81 per cent, respectively, of their office space in the downtown.

People living and working downtown are key to the revitalization of any city core, Morton said. The meagre one per cent — or 4,500 people — that live in downtown Halifax must be addressed.

“There is a trend right now in people wanting to live downtown and wanting an amenity-rich lifestyle and that comes from creating a labour force in the downtown ... and making it a safe and green environment,” Morton said.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

I see what you're both saying, but disagree.

I just don't think a a few tax breaks for downtown commercial will come anywhere near close to fix this rot. We're talking years and years of Government subsidies for business parks. And that is on top of failing to invest in transit. Exactly as Fenwick has said: there's still the harbor and peninsula. So, there should be an added cost to doing business in the business parks, a luxury tax, given we have to maintain roads and infrastructure out to those parks, all which cost the city. You would need either a full moratorium on taxes downtown to make the difference (not going to happen); so you need to also impose a tax on the big box / biz parks.

On a moratorium on additional new office space in the business parks, today, there's more than enough capacity in all of our ridiculous # of business parks (for a small city, we sure do seem to have a lot of them) for any businesses that prefer a suburban setting. And if there is demand for what is left, even better, to drive up prices and further level the playing field. Again, this is about righting historical wrongs-- literally decades of the City favoring business parks. Now it is time to make up for that, in the next decades.

Office space concentrated in the downtown core won't lead to a vibrant downtown core. Office workers just go home at 5 pm and there aren't enough residents to support retail shops. I like what is currently happening in the downtown area core with residential development outpacing office development. This will lead to a more desirable, vibrant downtown core where people will want to live and work.

The idea of concentrating office space downtown might think seem desirable as far as shiny towers on the skyline goes, but won't lead to a vibrant core with retail and people enjoying themselves during the evening. Why not let the downtown core develope naturally instead of artificially through government intervention creating a sterile, unpleasant environment?

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Office space concentrated in the downtown core won't lead to a vibrant downtown core. Office workers just go home at 5 pm and there aren't enough residents to support retail shops. I like what is currently happening in the downtown area core with residential development outpacing office development. This will lead to a more desirable, vibrant downtown core where people will want to live and work.

The idea of concentrating office space downtown might think seem desirable as far as shiny towers on the skyline goes, but won't lead to a vibrant core with retail and people enjoying themselves during the evening. Why not let the downtown core develope naturally instead of artificially through government intervention creating a sterile, unpleasant environment?

See, that's the thing. None of what is happening is the result of some free market operating naturally outside intervention.

The recent renaissance of residential development-- which I agree is great-- is a direct result of a government intervention: HRMxD. A new planning document that provided development certainty downtown.

The movement of office tenants from downtown to the business parks took decades to effect, and is also the result of government interventions-- subsidized land sales, lack of regulation in biz parks while over-regulation downtown, over-taxing downtown businesses/property taxes etc.

I think more residential downtown is fantastic, but a truly vibrant core will have a vibrant Central Business District, where top companies locate and so people live AND work downtown. Rather than just retirees buying condos, ensuring commercial enterprise is downtown, continues a happy cycle of health for the downtown core.

If peoples' workplaces are all out in the business parks, fewer people will live downtown, further away from their employment/offices, etc. We want workers downtown as well.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

No, we're terrible compared to comparator cities, big and small, across the country.

Check out this 2013 study: "The Value of Investing in Canadian Downtowns" by Canadian Urban Institute.

https://www.ida-downtown.org/eweb/docs/ValueInvCanDwtn13.pdf

We finish last (10th) out of the 10 cities studied.

Written about in the Herald: http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/10...wntown-needs-more-office-space-residents

Quote:

That's really interesting to look at. While I fully acknowledge our under-performance on this front, a few things jump out.

1. The way "downtown" is defined in different cities is inconsistent. Halifax's downtown is measured more or less as I would imagine: the CBD, plus the south stretches of Barrington and Hollis, and the SGR corridor. No problem there. But other cities are either too narrowly or too generously defined. Their downtown Edmonton borders, for example, include a pretty major chunk of residential real estate, and Hamilton even moreso. (I call out those cities specifically because by any measure, our downtown is vastly superior.)

Winnipeg's is also overly generous, including areas that can't at all be considered downtown, but Victoria, like Halifax, has very stingy boundaries. And so on.

Toronto is maybe the most extreme. Everything from Queen's Park to the Don River, and up into the Rosedale Ravine, is included, including St. Jamestown, Cabbagetown, the Annex, and a number of totally residential neighbourhoods that are absolutely not downtown. (Or at least not the CBD.) If they're going to do that in Toronto, it's ridiculous not to include Halifax's hospital/institutional area.


2. The other thing that strikes me is that this may be a way in which the regional municipality skews our stats (as I've mentioned before I suspect it does). There's no other city in which the "city" is equivalent to the entire CMA. Even the prairie cities (which tend to be very monopolar, with a lot of office space downtown) have at least a bit outside the city-proper boundaries. Due to the beast that is HRM, Halifax can only be compared with other cities on a CMA basis. I'm not sure this study is doing that; it may be comparing HRM to, for example, only the City of Toronto, which is an apples to oranges comparison, given that Toronto has less than 50% of its regional population, but Halifax has 100% of ours.

(That would also explain why Ottawa, another over-amalgamated city, is almost as low as we are for its percentage of total office inventory downtown.)

Also, Vancouver, has what, 600,000 people in an urban region of 2.8 million? I find it almost impossible to imagine that 73% of all Lower Mainland office space is in that relatively tiny slice of downtown Vancouver, much of which is occupied by residential buildings. So again, that suggests we're not really comparing comparables here. (i.e, it suggests that they've compared the entire Halifax region to only the City of Vancouver, which is less than one quarter of the Vancouver region.)

Anyway, one positive thing is that we've had among the highest downtown population growth. (Page 55.) Given everything happening since the last census, I imagine that's not only continued but escalated.

[Drybrain]

And I just looked at the city maps on pages 22 and 23 of that Canadian Urban Institute study, and I'm right: the city boundaries are indeed city boundaries, not regional boundaries, which makes them totally incomparable to Halifax.

I'll go out on a limb and say that by that standard, we're actually doing WELL for the amount of office space downtown. If Toronto is only at 53%, imagine how much Mississauga and Brampton and all that would drive it down. If any of the other cities were measured on a CMA basis as Halifax essentially was, they'd have worse stats too.

New conclusion: Halifax is probably doing fine in terms of the proportion of office space downtown. The vacancy rate is still a problem though.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

See, that's the thing. None of what is happening is the result of some free market operating naturally outside intervention.

The recent renaissance of residential development-- which I agree is great-- is a direct result of a government intervention: HRMxD. A new planning document that provided development certainty downtown.

The movement of office tenants from downtown to the business parks took decades to effect, and is also the result of government interventions-- subsidized land sales, lack of regulation in biz parks while over-regulation downtown, over-taxing downtown businesses/property taxes etc.

I think more residential downtown is fantastic, but a truly vibrant core will have a vibrant Central Business District, where top companies locate and so people live AND work downtown. Rather than just retirees buying condos, ensuring commercial enterprise is downtown, continues a happy cycle of health for the downtown core.

If peoples' workplaces are all out in the business parks, fewer people will live downtown, further away from their employment/offices, etc. We want workers downtown as well.

I completely disagree; Halifax by Design doesn't encourage residential growth downtown. This has been a natural process; there isn't a high demand for office space downtown so developers are building residential towers instead. The same natural process occurred in downtown Toronto; office supply outpaced demand in the late 1980's and led to the Bay-Adelaid Centre stump - http://www.blogto.com/city/2014/04/the_story_of_the_bay-adelaide_centre_stump/ . For almost 20 years there was virtually no office construction in downtown Toronto, instead new condos/residential loft conversions led to more people living downtown which resulted in a more vibrant downtown core.

I do not wish to be argumentative, but concentrating office space in downtown Halifax would require more harbour bridge capacity, rapid transit downtown, a Northwest Arm bridge, and expanded roads to the downtown core; what is natural about this? It is far more natural for people to have the choice of living close to where they work. In very large cities such as the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) this has occured. In my opinion, it has occurred in the Halifax area because of the topography that has led to long commutes because of the harbour, Bedford Basin and Northwest Arm.

I have never lived in Europe, but I wonder if this concept of having a large central downtown core is a North American concept or does it also exist in older European cities; this is just a question, I am not sure of the answer. It just seems more natural for people to live within short commuting distance of their homes.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

And I just looked at the city maps on pages 22 and 23 of that Canadian Urban Institute study, and I'm right: the city boundaries are indeed city boundaries, not regional boundaries, which makes them totally incomparable to Halifax.

I'll go out on a limb and say that by that standard, we're actually doing WELL for the amount of office space downtown. If Toronto is only at 53%, imagine how much Mississauga and Brampton and all that would drive it down.

Yep. A lot of these comparisons are deeply flawed.

A good primary source for office market data is companies like Cushman Wakefield, CBRE, Colliers, etc. They break down the cities into different submarkets (often "CBD" and "non-CBD") and show more useful metrics like absorption rate (net change in occupied square feet). One caveat with a lot of those reports is that they can be for leased office space only, so owned occupied buildings like the NSP HQ don't count, and moves from leased space to owner-occupied space look like negative absorption.

Most of those reports have the suburban vs. downtown breakdown for Halifax in the same ballpark as many other cities. They are saying that the vacancy rate is expected to go up in 2016 but then start to fall in 2017 as new office space stops coming onto the market. The "hair on fire" stuff about the downtown tanking or being much worse than any other city is just the usual defeatist spin that the local media love so much.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

And I just looked at the city maps on pages 22 and 23 of that Canadian Urban Institute study, and I'm right: the city boundaries are indeed city boundaries, not regional boundaries, which makes them totally incomparable to Halifax.

I'll go out on a limb and say that by that standard, we're actually doing WELL for the amount of office space downtown. If Toronto is only at 53%, imagine how much Mississauga and Brampton and all that would drive it down. If any of the other cities were measured on a CMA basis as Halifax essentially was, they'd have worse stats too.

New conclusion: Halifax is probably doing fine in terms of the proportion of office space downtown. The vacancy rate is still a problem though.

I agree. This Cushman & Wakefield report gives some up to date data - http://cwatlantic.com/wp-content/uploads...ce_Americas_MarketBeat_Office_Q32015.pdf. Central Halifax has 51% of the Halifax/Halifax Suburban/Dartmouth/Bedford total, considering the topography of this area (harbour, Bedford Basin, Northwest Arm), I think this is quite a high percentage.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

I do not wish to be argumentative, but concentrating office space in downtown Halifax would require more harbour bridge capacity, rapid transit downtown, a Northwest Arm bridge, and expanded roads to the downtown core; what is natural about this? It is far more natural for people to have the choice of living close to where they work.

I think this is a good point.

In Halifax, the real incentives are distorted somewhat since the tax rates do not reflect the costs of development and servicing in different parts of the city. HRM charges lower taxes in the office parks even though they cost more to service per square foot, and they have been investing more in suburban capital spending. As a result I think the deck is artificially stacked against downtown and that should be fixed.

However I agree that having everybody commute into a small area is not the ideal. It's not good from a transportation perspective, from a heritage preservation perspective, or from a livability perspective. Instead there should be a balance of residential growth downtown and employment growth in different growth centres around the metropolitan area. A good percentage should go into the urban core though, maybe 50% or more, because that is the area that's most easily served by transit and other services.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Isn't the biggest flaw with all the doomsday news the fact that the Nova Centre offices are already somewhat spoken for?

Aren't the mostly going to be occupied by one of the banks and some government like NSBI and other trade bodies? I thought the plan was then for city staff to then occupy the offices in the WTCC?

Even if Halifax will be overbuilt (though only a small part of Nova Centre is even "office"), won't things correct themselves over time anyway? All the millennials will come home from Calgary/Toronto eventually and bring their capital with them.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Maybe this has already been posted, but the Capital Plan was released yesterday:

http://www.novascotia.ca/finance/site-finance/media/finance/Capital_Plan_2016-2017.pdf

Contained within:

The second component is a $164.2 million investment in the Halifax Convention
Centre. This investment is being cost shared with the federal government contributing
$51.4 million and the Province of Nova Scotia and the Halifax Regional Municipality
each contributing $56.4 million.

Maybe this has been covered in an old thread, but why is $164M of taxpayer money being 'invested' in this? Unlike the library, which some like to complain about even though it provides a service that is accessible to all citizens of Halifax, this will have a lot of private space that the public will not have access to. Just curious as I never see it mentioned here when use of tax $ is discussed.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Maybe this has already been posted, but the Capital Plan was released yesterday:

http://www.novascotia.ca/finance/site-finance/media/finance/Capital_Plan_2016-2017.pdf

Contained within:


Maybe this has been covered in an old thread, but why is $164M of taxpayer money being 'invested' in this? Unlike the library, which some like to complain about even though it provides a service that is accessible to all citizens of Halifax, this will have a lot of private space that the public will not have access to. Just curious as I never see it mentioned here when use of tax $ is discussed.

Tax payers are only paying for space being used by the convention centre and at times the public will have access to these areas. Tax payers aren't paying for the office towers or hotel.

There is publicly owned/leased space which isn't accessible to the public or seldom accessible such as the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Naval Yards ...; how is this different than a publicly sponsored convention centre?

[ScovaNotian]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Tax payers are only paying for space being used by the convention centre and at times the public will have access to these areas. Tax payers aren't paying for the office towers or hotel.

There is publicly owned/leased space which isn't accessible to the public or seldom accessible such as the Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Naval Yards ...; how is this different than a publicly sponsored convention centre?

It's different in that the convention centre will hopefully generate a monetary return for the city and the province, isn't it? Assuming that a five-day convention attracts 400 attendees who wouldn't otherwise visit Nova Scotia, and who each spend $250 a day, that's half a million in spending, on hotels, restaurants, caterers, etc.