General Updates and News

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

Why isn't the city just running the building and renting out space to community groups?

Because then the group that wants it for their personal clubhouse would have to pay rent and act in a financially responsible manner. I shudder to think how much HRM money has been doled out to the current bunch over the years thanks to their buddy on Council.

I suspect there are very few viable business cases that would tempt any capable group to want to take this building on by purchasing and renovating it. The cost just to bring it up to code would be massive in itself. Therefore it may be likely that HRM will get stuck with it and need to pour millions into it. Perhaps they can stick the Planning offices there.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by someone123

Why isn't the city just running the building and renting out space to community groups?

It is a mess. Read their financials. A bust, a boondoggle, a waste of time and a councillor who just couldn't say no. Too many 'arts' groups don't have a financial clue (based on personal experience) and too many drama queens/artistes. I assume nothing will be cleared up until after the fall election.

[RoshanMcG]

Tel Lofts

[Colin May]

Yours for just $3.6 million :- 184,186,188 and 190 Portland Street.
Sale pending, first listed October 2 2019 total assessed value $1,079,700

[Jonovision]

There is an application to discharge the development agreement at 2900 Agricola. Where the radio station building is.

https://www.halifax.ca/business/planning.../case-22906-2900-agricola-street-halifax

I'm assuming this means that the site will be redeveloped soon.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Looks like Cogswell may be delayed yet again due to COVID-19 related budget cuts.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot...-summer-in-halifax-region-axed-1.5568598

Under the original proposal, proposed capital cuts include:

$26.2 million for Cogswell Interchange redevelopment.
$5.6 million for fire station replacements.
$2 million for Downtown Dartmouth infrastructure renewal.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Looks like Cogswell may be delayed yet again due to COVID-19 related budget cuts.

I haven't really dug into it but my first impression from reading so far is this is the wrong way to approach budgeting right now. This is a good time to spend on infrastructure and Cogswell in particular is somewhat disruptive, so this would have been an excellent time to begin work.

It's completely backward to put off a public works project when there's little traffic and growing unemployment and then restart it when the economic picks up again and there's more traffic and demand for labour.

Then on top of this there's the general fact that every little thing HRM does seems to take 20 years. According to LinkedIn the project director for Cogswell was hired nearly 5 years ago.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Looks like Cogswell may be delayed yet again due to COVID-19 related budget cuts.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot...-summer-in-halifax-region-axed-1.5568598

HRM would be foolish to spend millions demolishing Cogswell, there will be no interest from real estate entities and there is no solution to the issue of truck traffic heading to and from Halterm. The world has changed although HRM council seems to think this is a temporary blip and has decided that layoffs will be confined to people who provide services to residents but are not HRM employees.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

HRM would be foolish to spend millions demolishing Cogswell, there will be no interest from real estate entities and there is no solution to the issue of truck traffic heading to and from Halterm. The world has changed although HRM council seems to think this is a temporary blip and has decided that layoffs will be confined to people who provide services to residents but are not HRM employees.

The Windsor Street Exchange improvements include rail improvements for the South End terminal. Perhaps they will be shelved too due to the economic downturn.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by someone123

The Windsor Street Exchange improvements include rail improvements for the South End terminal. Perhaps they will be shelved too due to the economic downturn.

Hopefully not, these are the type of infrastructure projects we need to carry us over into recovery. Plus it would be great to have this one done before the Cogwells proceeds, with fewer trucks going through the downtown.

[Colin May]

There are fewer trucks going through downtown and it will be like that for quite a while. Changing Cogswell is now a project with dubious payback.
We have just been reviewing what we knew about COVID and our first notification was January 26. The Democrats were still busy attempting to impeach Trump and CNN in N America was 24/7 on the issue, no mention of impending doom. I think I will assemble all the COVID messages we received and have the information in one file. In February Justin was wandering around Africa shilling for votes in an attempt to become a member of the UN Security Council; he returned to Canada February 15 2020.
Our economy is not going back to what many thought was 'normal'; in some ways it was 'abnormal'.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Colin May

HRM would be foolish to spend millions demolishing Cogswell, there will be no interest from real estate entities

Demolishing Cogswell and rebuilding the street grid is already supposed to take until 2022. If it's delayed by a year then we can say 2023, and then the build-out will be several more years, maybe something like a decade. That's always been the plan. Unless COVID actually stunts the city's growth in a profound way for a generation (no reason to assume that) I don't see why this would affect real-estate demand for more than a relatively short time.

As I see it, in the worst-case scenario the city's growth and economy are badly hit. It would still be better to tear down Cogswell and rebuild it as a functioning neighbourhood, even to a lower residential density reflecting reducing demand.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Demolishing Cogswell and rebuilding the street grid is already supposed to take until 2022. If it's delayed by a year then we can say 2023, and then the build-out will be several more years, maybe something like a decade. That's always been the plan. Unless COVID actually stunts the city's growth in a profound way for a generation (no reason to assume that) I don't see why this would affect real-estate demand for more than a relatively short time.

As I see it, in the worst-case scenario the city's growth and economy are badly hit. It would still be better to tear down Cogswell and rebuild it as a functioning neighbourhood, even to a lower residential density reflecting reducing demand.

Cash flow rules. The plan did not take into account the arrival of a pandemic.
HRM has healthy reserves but they will be hit hard this year and next year and that is why Dube is advising against the Mason et al plan. When Savage talks about ' a rainy day' he is wrong. Saving for a rainy day is not the same as saving for months of rain. He and his colleagues have their eyes on the election and then next year they'll come back and cry 'woe is us'. And he has not yet talked about the condition of the pension plan which was well described by the CEO of the plan in January 2019, complete with a warning of the difficulties the plan faced. All swept under the rug since he went public.
And this " European countries should brace themselves for a deadly second wave of coronavirus infections because the pandemic is not over, the World Health Organisation’s top official in Europe has said.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Hans Kluge, director for the WHO European region, delivered a stark warning to countries beginning to ease their lockdown restrictions, saying that now is the "time for preparation, not celebration".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/14/second-deadly-wave-coronavirus-hit-europe-winter/

[IanWatson]

My worry with Cogswell is that routine maintenance has been put off, presumably because it was planned for demolition in the very near future. The road surface on top is atrocious, and the concrete structure is getting sketchy. If the deadline keeps getting bumped, at what point does the city have to invest a ton of money just to keep it in a usable state?

[Keith P.]

In times of economic distress and uncertainty it makes some sense to limit capital spending in order to keep the lights on. It makes even more sense to take a hard look at operations - since those are what drive ongoing expenditures - and reduce non-essential spending, cut the frills, and focus on core services. Unfortunately what Mason et al are proposing is to limit operational cuts in order to keep spending that money while borrowing as much as possible to do so while still spending on capital. This is exactly the wrong approach and Dube is correct in treating it as such. There is a seeming majority on Council that thinks it is their job to spend as much as possible regardless of the need, and that all HRM spending is good spending. Some of the recent pronouncements by certain members of Council that they would not support any cut to certain budgets demonstrates this, and likely also shines a light on them pandering for votes from HRM's employees and their like-minded supporters. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing now. This situation is of indeterminate duration and HRMs future cash flows could be impaired for a significant time. We just don't know if and when things will get back to normal. Buying a new house and car when you just got laid off is not a strategy most people would follow but it what some on Council seem to be proposing.

We need an entirely new Council this fall.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

In times of economic distress and uncertainty it makes some sense to limit capital spending in order to keep the lights on. It makes even more sense to take a hard look at operations - since those are what drive ongoing expenditures - and reduce non-essential spending, cut the frills, and focus on core services. Unfortunately what Mason et al are proposing is to limit operational cuts in order to keep spending that money while borrowing as much as possible to do so while still spending on capital. This is exactly the wrong approach and Dube is correct in treating it as such. There is a seeming majority on Council that thinks it is their job to spend as much as possible regardless of the need, and that all HRM spending is good spending. Some of the recent pronouncements by certain members of Council that they would not support any cut to certain budgets demonstrates this, and likely also shines a light on them pandering for votes from HRM's employees and their like-minded supporters. This is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing now. This situation is of indeterminate duration and HRMs future cash flows could be impaired for a significant time. We just don't know if and when things will get back to normal. Buying a new house and car when you just got laid off is not a strategy most people would follow but it what some on Council seem to be proposing.

We need an entirely new Council this fall.

Actually, it's in hard economic times that you invest in capital projects to stimulate the economy and help in the road to recovery.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Haliguy

Actually, it's in hard economic times that you invest in capital projects to stimulate the economy and help in the road to recovery.

Not if you do not have any certainty of future revenues. "Stimulating the economy" is best left to senior levels of govt that have considerable capacity to incur debt and can actually make a difference to the economy.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by IanWatson

My worry with Cogswell is that routine maintenance has been put off, presumably because it was planned for demolition in the very near future. The road surface on top is atrocious, and the concrete structure is getting sketchy. If the deadline keeps getting bumped, at what point does the city have to invest a ton of money just to keep it in a usable state?

That was my exact worry when I first read this. IIRC, the entire stimulus for this project was that the structural integrity of the overpasses was deteriorating and it was going to require a significant investment in maintenance costs to allow them to continue to be safe and keep them in use.

Each time this project is delayed, it seems to me that there is risk that some further investment will have to be applied to keep them in use - which is counterintuitive - spending money to maintain structures that are soon going to be torn down.

So... it makes me wonder if this aspect has been taken into account. Presumably the overpasses are going through regular engineering inspections to ensure their structural integrity, but it just seems that delaying this project doesn't seem like the best way to cut costs - especially in consideration of the potential long-term implications of continual delay.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

That was my exact worry when I first read this. IIRC, the entire stimulus for this project was that the structural integrity of the overpasses was deteriorating and it was going to require a significant investment in maintenance costs to allow them to continue to be safe and keep them in use.

There is a disconnect in that Cogswell is presented as a "nice to have" project but in reality the city has been maintaining a surplus interchange for around 50 years, spending on maintenance and giving up tax revenues on that land. It is not comparable to, say, the central library project.

There have also been multiple rounds of studies done and shelved. If I remember correctly, this was studied as far back as the 90's. Presumably if Cogswell is delayed for a year the Cogswell team that already exists will continue to be paid by HRM. The project director for Cogswell got paid $218,952.00 in 2019 (source). I'd guess the costs from all these delays over multiple decades add up to a significant percentage of the project costs.

Old HRM news release about Cogswell maintenance, cost shared with the province, but no numbers: http://legacycontent.halifax.ca/mediaroom/pressrelease/pr2009/090902cogswellmaint.php

Council has a history of debating this when maintenance can no longer be put off and then kicking the can down the road.

[Colin May]

Good posts. The solution would be an independent survey to determine the safety of the structure and an estimate of cost to maintain for the short term. HRM has given no indication as to the estimated remaining lifespan.
I hear the apartment vacancy rate has soared, if true it is good news for permanent residents. Banks be happy/unhappy depending on the credit worthiness of local developers.