[Halifax] Elmwood Hotel (5189 South) | 28 M | 9 fl | U/C

[HfxExpat]

Has there been any news on this one recently? I drove past it the other day and it's really deteriorated from how it used to look. There also seems to be a barbershop that's located there now in it with no fewer than 12 large signs plastered on the walls of the building.

The development proposal would fit much better into the new context of the square with the South & Hollis building complete and the Barrington one in the DA phase. Hanging on to it for heritages' sake is just a bit quaint for the kind of city Halifax is becoming.

It's time to demolish this shantyhouse.

[IanWatson]

This one is waiting on the Old South Suburb Heritage District. Council recently passed the Schmidtville Heritage District, so hopefully attention can now be focused on getting Old South approved ASAP.

[JET]

Originally Posted by HfxExpat

Has there been any news on this one recently? I drove past it the other day and it's really deteriorated from how it used to look. There also seems to be a barbershop that's located there now in it with no fewer than 12 large signs plastered on the walls of the building.

The development proposal would fit much better into the new context of the square with the South & Hollis building complete and the Barrington one in the DA phase. Hanging on to it for heritages' sake is just a bit quaint for the kind of city Halifax is becoming.

It's time to demolish this shantyhouse.

Given Mark's optimistic post in January, I have no problem waiting if the present building will be maintained in new development. It's only cosmetic stuff that is deteriorating, that's not a hard fix.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by HfxExpat

Has there been any news on this one recently? I drove past it the other day and it's really deteriorated from how it used to look. There also seems to be a barbershop that's located there now in it with no fewer than 12 large signs plastered on the walls of the building.

The development proposal would fit much better into the new context of the square with the South & Hollis building complete and the Barrington one in the DA phase. Hanging on to it for heritages' sake is just a bit quaint for the kind of city Halifax is becoming.

It's time to demolish this shantyhouse.

The barber shop and all its unsightly signage has been there for more than three years now. It hasn't particularly deteriorated in recent years; it's looked about like it does now for the past decade.

It's one of the only large Victorian apartment houses left in the city, and steeped in city and neighbourhood history. The development proposal that was put forth to replace it is basically a mediocre cube. There's every reason to preserve it as the city moves into the future.

[JET]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

The barber shop and all its unsightly signage has been there for more than three years now. It hasn't particularly deteriorated in recent years; it's looked about like it does now for the past decade.

It's one of the only large Victorian apartment houses left in the city, and steeped in city and neighbourhood history. The development proposal that was put forth to replace it is basically a mediocre cube. There's every reason to preserve it as the city moves into the future.

[Dmajackson]

New proposal by Galaxy Properties Ltd to rehabilitate and relocate the Elmwood Hotel building to allow for a nine storey residential building in the rear with frontage on both South and Barrington Streets.

Case H00527: Substantial Alteration to the Contributing Heritage Resource at 5185-89 South Street, Halifax

[atbw]

This seems pretty notable for a few reasons:

1. This does look like a decent return/preservation of the Elmwood. Looks handsome. The lack of an entrance in that part of the building does seem weird, though. I guess it would be hard to fit in with it being right against the sidewalk.

2. Parking took me a minute to figure out, but it looks like parking will be accessed via the SoHo on the corner of South & Hollis, also owned by Galaxy.

Hope they don't re-use those faux-brick panels but this could be a nice building if they pull it off.

[someone123]

Here is a rendering from the document:

[Drybrain]

Great to see progress here. It's not long ago that the plan was just to rip it down and replace it with a pretty mediocre structure. Leaving aside the preservation/restoration of the Elmwood itself, the new structure is far better-looking than the previous proposal. (Not surpassingly, but a few notches above.)

That grey stone foundation looks a bit odd though--I wonder if a contemporary foundation could be faced with old-school ironstone or something, to give it a genuinely historical appearance.

Still, I won't turn my nose up at it over that, given that we were previously going to lose the whole building.

[Jonovision]

This will all come down to materials. Looking through the document as always they have the 'or similar' listed next to most of the facade materials. This always worries me cause that is how we ended up with that ugly fake brick next door on Soho.

[Aegon123]

I really love this one, but agree it will come down to materials used. I think this, along with the Waverley Hotel down the street, are shining examples that development doesn’t have to stop in conversation districts and actually encourages rehabilitation rather than demolition.

My only concern is that it may take away from the “feel” of the area. Right now the Old South Suburb is pretty rich with contiguous heritage properties. I am slightly worried that filling in the gaps with very modern buildings may damage the aesthetic of the area over time; however, if this continues we may get some great rehabilitation of some of the older buildings that would otherwise fall victim to “facadism” or demolition. I think if new buildings were required to emulate older buildings, at least on ground level, it may mitigate the risk of possible deterioration of cohesive aesthetic over time.

I know Dexel is currently working on a proposal for 1333, 1343 and 1351 Barrington, one of which is the Jefferson Thomas House. I heard that it will include restoring the facade of the building next door which fell victim to that horrible 1950s block brick look. I am excited to see that proposal as I think it could be a great project if done correctly and with care.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Aegon123

I know Dexel is currently working on a proposal for 1333, 1343 and 1351 Barrington, one of which is the Jefferson Thomas House. I heard that it will include restoring the facade of the building next door which fell victim to that horrible 1950s block brick look. I am excited to see that proposal as I think it could be a great project if done correctly and with care.

If it is done well there could be more heritage character as this area is developed, not less. As with your example of the Barrington house that got turned into a brick box. If we were talking about a perfectly-preserved portion of inner city Paris it might be different.

If you look at the Elmwood site today it is a bit strange with an empty lot on one side, big setback that is apparently used for parking, and then a simple postwar box-like building next door with little or no heritage value. There is a lot of room for development and moving it up to the corner is probably a good thing given the reality of how this property is used.

FWIW I'd say that the character that is preserved and its quality/stability matters a lot more than the other stuff around it (the 2-8 floors along the street being 10x more important than the towers behind with a setback in terms of feel in person). And I think the idea that modern buildings detract while faux historic is more compatible is just misguided; either style can be done well or done poorly (with historic style reproduction being more challenging to get right). I think this is a general area where the development debate was very misguided in the past and probably just intentionally driven off the rails by people who were reaching for reasons to limit new construction.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Aegon123

]
My only concern is that it may take away from the “feel” of the area. Right now the Old South Suburb is pretty rich with contiguous heritage properties. I am slightly worried that filling in the gaps with very modern buildings may damage the aesthetic of the area over time; however, if this continues we may get some great rehabilitation of some of the older buildings that would otherwise fall victim to “facadism” or demolition. I think if new buildings were required to emulate older buildings, at least on ground level, it may mitigate the risk of possible deterioration of cohesive aesthetic over time.

I had a similar thought when I saw this, but realistically the area is already a hodgepodge of architectural styles spanning the past 200-plus years. The two blocks of Barrington north of here contain Victorian townhouses, Georgian buildings nearly a century older, a small mid-century modern mid-rise, and a 2000s pomo-ish mid-rise. This new tower will replace a two-storey mid-century building. building.

Given the need for new housing, and the fact that without what is effectively a subsidy from the new development, it seems unlikely we'd get the restoration of the historic building, which would just gradually decay further. (Plus I prefer cities full of interesting aesthetic juxtapositions.)

So I'll take this, but yeah, of course I hope the new building is constructed to a high quality.

[atbw]

Taking a closer look at the doc, I see that this one is being designed by ZZap - that gives me a lot of faith that it’ll be done decently well. They seem to do good work.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Anything close to the rendering is a win in my book. Considering that just a few years ago the only plausible outcome seemed to involve demolition of the Elmwood, I'm happy to see that the tides have turned.

It actually feels like Halifax is turning the corner a little bit, in terms of historic buildings starting to receive some respect. It's a start anyhow...

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

It actually feels like Halifax is turning the corner a little bit, in terms of historic buildings starting to receive some respect. It's a start anyhow...

There are a whole bunch of these proposals to bankroll major restoration projects with new builds at the moment: Elmwood, Waverley, Victoria Hall. Hopefully whatever happens on Barrington with the Dexel properties skews more in this direction than facadification. It's great to see; hopefully these all get built. A little leery that a looming recession could put the brakes on some of these, but on the other hand, the housing demand isn't going anywhere, so there should be a market regardless.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

A little leery that a looming recession could put the brakes on some of these, but on the other hand, the housing demand isn't going anywhere, so there should be a market regardless.

It depends on the scale of future economic troubles, which nobody really knows, but it seems like a lot of the smaller recessions are more like blips in the longer planning horizons of these projects. This project will go on the market 2-4 years in the future.

I found it interesting how most projects in Halifax end up happening eventually even if they're delayed sometimes for many years. And then on the other hand there are some empty sites or buildings that sit around for decades with no planning or development activity. Most of the slow ones have some kind of government involvement.

[essaysmith]

I didn't read the entire report, but it looks like they are moving the building in both directions toward the corner?

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

There are a whole bunch of these proposals to bankroll major restoration projects with new builds at the moment: Elmwood, Waverley, Victoria Hall. Hopefully whatever happens on Barrington with the Dexel properties skews more in this direction than facadification. It's great to see; hopefully these all get built.

Add to that the moving and restoration of the buildings for the Promenade Robie South project, and a few others like the James Doull house (not sure of the current status), and things seem to be turning in the right direction.

To my mind, just to see projects like these proposed as being viable is an indication that the thinking is starting to change, as it was not long ago at all that the default process would have been to just level these places and put up a featureless box in its place, because... business plan.

I also hope that the Barrington properties don't go the 'taxidermy for buildings' route... but I will say with these other projects that include restoration coming online it will probably provide some momentum for new projects to move more towards restoring the historic building and building new around it... hopefully.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

A little leery that a looming recession could put the brakes on some of these, but on the other hand, the housing demand isn't going anywhere, so there should be a market regardless.

I think this is the key point. The projects should move forward because of demand, though if finances become tighter there might be less of an inclination to do quality restorations and higher-end finishes on the new construction.

Interesting times.

[ScovaNotian]

The rendering does not make the corner look attractive at all. If the building had been built without a setback, it wouldn't have been built like that. I wish they could leave a (possibly reduced) setback (maybe with a set of stairs that lead up to the porch) and be granted some extra height for what is behind to make up for the loss of space.