General Updates and News

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by kph06

The last house on the Bliss/Robie corner before the dental office is gutted, the structure looks to only have weeks left before it is down.

Further north on Robie, the two houses north of Jubilee either side of "the house with black window" as I knew it as a kid look to be being prepped for demolition as well. The house in the middle is a registered historic property. Demolishing creeping in either side of it will (probably rightfully) garner the ire of historic groups.

Honestly totally baffled by thinking behind this expansive but higgledy-piggledy demolition strategy. Some of these houses are nothing special, but the fact that one man is spending millions upon millions of dollars to acquire and demolish houses on one of the city's most visible streets with no apparent redevelopment plan reads to me as very weird.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Honestly totally baffled by thinking behind this expansive but higgledy-piggledy demolition strategy. Some of these houses are nothing special, but the fact that one man is spending millions upon millions of dollars to acquire and demolish houses on one of the city's most visible streets with no apparent redevelopment plan reads to me as very weird.

One can imagine a strategy by which the houses are acquired when available and torn down to evade any imagined future stronger heritage protections (plus to save property tax costs in the mean time). Get 'em and rip 'em down while you still can...

There are now projects in play where protected heritage buildings can be moved or modified to the advantage of the development, so if enough empty lots are created, one can imagine the remaining houses that can't be touched would be treated in this way.

I have no knowledge of this particular activity, nor any business acumen to speak of, but there seems to be a pattern here.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

One can imagine a strategy by which the houses are acquired when available and torn down to evade any imagined future stronger heritage protections (plus to save property tax costs in the mean time). Get 'em and rip 'em down while you still can...

There are now projects in play where protected heritage buildings can be moved or modified to the advantage of the development, so if enough empty lots are created, one can imagine the remaining houses that can't be touched would be treated in this way.

I have no knowledge of this particular activity, nor any business acumen to speak of, but there seems to be a pattern here.

The money required must be enormous, though. He's acquiring, then demolishing, all these properties, then sitting on them indefinitely, with an eye to eventually redeveloping them under CP zoning which will only permit a midrise spanning at most half the depth of the block. Add in moving buildings around and the costs escalate further. I'm sure there's some kind of strategy involved, but it's hard to parse from the outside, and in the meantime a major city street is getting ripped up in a pretty egregious fashion.

[Keith P.]

And meanwhile our august Council and in particular the member for the area are utterly silent on the subject. But, hey, bike lanes!!

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

The money required must be enormous, though. He's acquiring, then demolishing, all these properties, then sitting on them indefinitely, with an eye to eventually redeveloping them under CP zoning which will only permit a midrise spanning at most half the depth of the block. Add in moving buildings around and the costs escalate further. I'm sure there's some kind of strategy involved, but it's hard to parse from the outside, and in the meantime a major city street is getting ripped up in a pretty egregious fashion.

I wonder how much of this behaviour was a product of a very low interest rate environment in which you could buy just about any land, do whatever you wanted, and then sell or develop for a huge profit. Some developers probably were/are self defeating (I don't know in this case) and yet still made lots of money as they did not waste all of their 10% annual returns.

In the long run they are potentially engaged in a high risk activity as the land prices can crash and stay low for decades, although Halifax is not so stratospheric. Around here there are stories of developers buying fast food joints zoned for condos for $80M and flipping for $250M, etc. Somebody will be left holding the bag as the high end investor condo tower may be dead. It was never really a thing in Halifax.

The municipality and province should have stepped in more aggressively to prevent some of these areas from being trashed. They did it with the residential side streets. I think part of the problem is there are very broad plans (Centre Plan) that operate at an abstract level and then there's the heritage registration system that isn't always appropriate and that councillors don't seem to want to apply against the wishes of property owners. They will happily work to prevent some long-time property owners from building on their land but they won't prevent shell companies from buying and tearing down heritage buildings.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

The money required must be enormous, though. He's acquiring, then demolishing, all these properties, then sitting on them indefinitely, with an eye to eventually redeveloping them under CP zoning which will only permit a midrise spanning at most half the depth of the block. Add in moving buildings around and the costs escalate further. I'm sure there's some kind of strategy involved, but it's hard to parse from the outside, and in the meantime a major city street is getting ripped up in a pretty egregious fashion.

I agree that it seems odd for sure, and admittedly am not aware of the scope or specifics of this activity.

My immediate thoughts center around the idea that we may be slowly transitioning from these houses being considered 'old dumps' to 'important heritage buildings', in which case development opportunities in that area may be few and far between. Seems like a potential opportunity for building 'premium level' condos in the future, thereby making the ability to buy and demolish without resistance, somewhat priceless...

Just loose speculation, though, as I don't follow this stuff as closely or in-depth as you guys tend to.

Either that, or just a super-rich dude with more money than he knows what to do with, wanting to piss off the Peggy Cameron 'friends of' lot...

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

I agree that it seems odd for sure, and admittedly am not aware of the scope or specifics of this activity.

My immediate thoughts center around the idea that we may be slowly transitioning from these houses being considered 'old dumps' to 'important heritage buildings', in which case development opportunities in that area may be few and far between. Seems like a potential opportunity for building 'premium level' condos in the future, thereby making the ability to buy and demolish without resistance, somewhat priceless...

I think preserving some of these houses would have been very defensible from a heritage perspective. Others are no great loss, but in both cases, leaving so many lots empty, as excavation sites, for who knows how long, is extremely bad. Someone123 is right, there should be some mechanism to prevent this from happening.

Tsimiklis must either be incredibly dumb or incredibly rich, since he's obviously shelling out a ton of money for acquisition, hazardous-materials remediation, demolition and property taxes, while generating zero revenue.

[someone123]

Context matters a lot for these buildings including the value of the already registered buildings which are more impressive in clusters. I am reminded of a 3 storey apartment building on Inglis from the 1890's or so. The city denied registration a while ago (not enough points?). It's on a street with historic streetscapes, and is between two other registered heritage buildings that I guess scored more points. It seems to have survived but it could have been torn down like those Robie Street houses, and it shows how the norm for registration and protections in Halifax is/was way out in left field.

To see where this already went wrong look at Crofton-Uniacke House on Morris Street. Amazing old house that would be so much better in a better context.

[JET]

https://alvincomiter.com/gallery/a-nova-scotia-archive/halifax-north-residential/

Some nice pictures of old houses in Halifax.
There is a crisp one of the old Garden Crest

[Colin May]

For those who are interested in development permits and units in HRM and outside the boundaries of the former cities of Dartmouth and Halifax and the town of Bedford the RCMP has pages of graphic representations as part of their budget request to the Board of Police Commissioners. The data covers the period January 1 2016 to July 8 2022 and is by municipal electoral district : https://cdn.halifax.ca/sites/default/fil...ommittees-commissions/221214bopc1022.pdf
The document is the best and most thorough description of how HRM has changed, the planning staff have never done anything of this magnitude.
The subject of mental health calls is referred to and on page 5 of their report there is this ..." In the 365 days of 2021, for Halifax District Calls for Services, there were only 14 days with no mental health related call(s) for service. In the first 273 days of 2022, up to Sept. 30th 2022 there have been only 5 days with no mental health related calls for service. ....Wait times on Mental Health IPTA related calls: Average wait time in hours for 340 transports over the last 5 years is
6.3 hours or ½ an officer shift per call waiting in emergency rooms. "
Appendix D refers to developments in Middle and Lower Sackville see page 23
The document then provides an analysis of the changes and complexity in policing.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by JET

https://alvincomiter.com/gallery/a-nova-scotia-archive/halifax-north-residential/

Some nice pictures of old houses in Halifax.
There is a crisp one of the old Garden Crest

Thanks for that. I guess the replacement one is a better representation than I had given it credit for.


Source


Source

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by JET

https://alvincomiter.com/gallery/a-nova-scotia-archive/halifax-north-residential/

Some nice pictures of old houses in Halifax.
There is a crisp one of the old Garden Crest

Great find. These appear to have been mostly taken in the late '80s/early '90s. Since Halifax was still a sleepy city then with little growth and virtually no new development occurring these were at little risk of loss and many appear to be well-maintained. There are a few nondescript wooden boxes shown but most are masonry structures that command a presence.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Great find. These appear to have been mostly taken in the late '80s/early '90s. Since Halifax was still a sleepy city then with little growth and virtually no new development occurring these were at little risk of loss and many appear to be well-maintained. There are a few nondescript wooden boxes shown but most are masonry structures that command a presence.

There was a boom period in the 80's that was only surpassed in the last few years although I am not sure how much construction lasted into the late 80's. Then there was a long period in the 90's and 2000's where you would see maybe 1 or 2 modest construction projects happen every couple years. One example of a project that would have been a big deal in those days being Barrington Gate. Virtually all projects of that era had some kind of bland and inoffensive red/tan brick theme that was also used on institutional buildings like schools.

One thing that stands out to me is how much Hollis Street south of Sackville or so declined despite having had some prominent historic buildings. It really suffered from urban blight after WW2 even though the signs of it are mostly gone now aside from parking lots. It is a bit like Brunswick Street which went from high end Victorian to semi-demolished.

The Paramount is interesting too. In WW2 era photos it has a more ornate facade with a small canopy/marquee. Then in the 50's or 60's it got a large vertical sign and I believe the facade may have been replaced or simplified then (basically cinder block appearance but maybe it was painted stones). In these circa 80's pictures you can see that it's still a theatre, and is already stripped down, but still has windows. Today it has fully degraded into a featureless box with metal cladding.

[Patrick Matthews]

I didnt see this posted anywhere else, but Manga has big plans for behind the current DoubleTree Hotel in Dartmouth by the bridge.

3 towers. 33 floors / 870 units

This would fit well with rumoured and confirmed projects in the area.


https://mangahotels.com/our-properties/?p=new-developments

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Patrick Matthews

I didnt see this posted anywhere else, but Manga has big plans for behind the current DoubleTree Hotel in Dartmouth by the bridge.

3 towers. 33 floors / 870 units

Lots of posts and hi-def renderings in the Development Rumours topic from August of 2021.

[Colin May]

Don't buy a condo in a tall building if you want a private view ...https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...-privacy-ruling-cities-privacy-precedent

[Jreeb]

Originally Posted by Patrick Matthews

I didnt see this posted anywhere else, but Manga has big plans for behind the current DoubleTree Hotel in Dartmouth by the bridge.

3 towers. 33 floors / 870 units

This would fit well with rumoured and confirmed projects in the area.


https://mangahotels.com/our-properties/?p=new-developments

I believe they are now looking at doing 1,042 units across the three buildings.

[LikesBikes]

Presentation on the Kearney Lake Dev. Rd dev with some nice renderings at the 18 minute mark - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyoeousQfpQ

Overall, a nice plan but pouring all those residents onto one road seems like a poor plan and the layout of that part of the city makes it tough to serve it with transit or get people to use AT to get places.

[mleblanc]

I don't believe I've seen this render before, nor do I see a thread for the project, but WM Fares has posted their Scot / Joe Howe project on their site:


Directly next to this project, 3485 Joe Howe:


This will be quite the different stretch in a few years. 4-5 projects on the go currently?

[terrynorthend]

Originally Posted by mleblanc

I don't believe I've seen this render before, nor do I see a thread for the project, but WM Fares has posted their Scot / Joe Howe project on their site:


Directly next to this project, 3485 Joe Howe:


This will be quite the different stretch in a few years. 4-5 projects on the go currently?

3485 JH has turned out far better than I ever imagined.

Did Fares do that, because these new projects look very good too?