General Updates and News

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

As I recall Harold was an employee of Moosehead Breweries at the time and the event was theirs. I don't think Moosehead asked the govt for anything to prop it up.

I remember that too, because there was some sort of big event at City Hall in the plaza and they were giving away Moosehead stuff for it. I ended up with a Moosehead hat, even though I was a kid.

[DigitalNinja]

A flyer came into my work yesterday from DTZ barnicke. they have a few pieces of land up for sale.

565 Windmill rd is up for sale, 11.5 million. (The old steel mill)
1266 Queen st. Is up for sale. "The Mary Queen of Scots" It's a heritage building though.
They have an ad for retail in the Trillium.
1711 Barrington st is up for sale as well. For 795,000
There is also a block of houses up for sale on the corner of North and robie. Selling for 2.5mil. C2 zoned.
155 Wyse rd is vacant land up for sale.
There is an ad in here for new construction in hammonds plains that says is starting construction in fall of 2011.

And that is about it for the major stuff.

[pblaauw]

Back in '09, Peter MacKay announced a new Armoury in Bedford. Does anyone know where it was built (or where it will be built, if it hasn't already, though I suspect it has). I can only think of the shooting range as a possible location.

At some point, he also said he would be back to talk about the long runway at Shearwater. ....still waiting!

[planarchy]

I don't think there is a thread for this...Project sounds bigger than I expected. Should be a great change for a dismal corner.

Mixed Use Facilty on the development site on Brunswick and Cogswell



A member of the community since 1963, the Citadel Halifax Hotel is changing to better serve the community and visitors.
The development site on Brunswick and Cogswell Streets will be transformed into a mixed-use facility, featuring two new hotels and a residential building, combined with restaurant and retail space.

Join Steve Giblin, President and CEO, for a morning briefing on this exciting project.

When: September 8, 2011, 9:00 AM

Where: Citadel Halifax Hotel, Terrace Room

SilverBirch Hotels and Resorts, proud operator of the Citadel Halifax Hotel, is one of Canada's leading hotel management companies, with over 20 hotels and resorts across the country. To learn more, visit CitadelHotelMakeover.ca

Light refreshments will be served. Parking is available at the Citadel Halifax Hotel.

Event Date and Time
Thursday, September 8 - 9:00 am

Event Location
the Citadel Halifax Hotel

[kph06]

This would be quite a change:


Source (and more images)

[planarchy]

There’s a new look coming for Spring Garden Road

By JOHN DEMONT Business Reporter
Wed, Sep 7 - 4:54 AM

Remember Halifax’s Spring Garden Road back in the 1990s? Louis Lawen does — the empty malls, the blank storefronts, the fast-food joints occupying prime street-front real estate space.

"It didn’t much look like a place where anything was happening," the president of Dexel Developments says. "Not like now."

That’s not just a developer’s empty talk.

Lawen’s company, after all, is behind the high-end 97-unit residential development over City Centre Atlantic. But that’s only one of a long list of residential and commercial developments already underway or on the planning board for the Spring Garden Road area.

The new library, when it is finished, may be the shining symbol of the area’s rebirth. But 1,000 residential units are also set to come on stream in the next few years. And that figure is sure to soar, given the large swaths of downtown land likely to fall into developers’ hands in the near future.

All those people living in the area are, of course, good for business. At the same time, well-known entrepreneurs like Mickey MacDonald are investing. MacDonald is turning The Shops of Mills into a women’s shopping boutique and is opening a franchise of his fabled Chickenburger restaurant across the street from the new library. And national chains are again expressing interest in opening outlets on Spring Garden.

The upshot: a transformation that could eventually spark a commercial rebirth of the city’s downtown.

"In five years, we won’t even recognize Spring Garden Road," says Danny Chedrawe, president of Westwood Developments.

Thanks to Chedrawe, that metamorphosis is already underway. Among the projects on his plate are a $10-million office building on the corner of Spring Garden Road and Birmingham Street and a hotel-condominium and retail complex fronting on Spring Garden, where the Second Cup is located, and bordered by Brunswick, Queen and Doyle streets.

Chedrawe is also assembling other buildings to change the local landscape. And, he told The Chronicle Herald, he is planning another major Spring Garden development.

"Everything I’ve seen about the street’s future is encouraging."

Wadih Fares clearly feels the same way. His 19-storey The Trillium development on South Park Street will bring 84 new high-end condos to the market. A partnership between the Fares Group and Banc Developments, owned by Besim Halif, for a mixed commercial-residential development in the area of Birmingham, Clyde and Queen streets will also add to the buzz.

The new construction won’t stop there. Developer Joe Ramia of Rank Inc. is in discussions with Saint Mary’s Basilica regarding the church’s parking lot at the corner of Spring Garden Road and Grafton Street. And Shannex Inc., owned by Cape Breton tycoon Joe Shannon, is moving ahead with plans to build a seniors residence on land south of Spring Garden formerly owned by All Saints Cathedral.

In the months ahead, Halifax Regional Municipality plans to sell off hectares of vacant land in the Spring Garden area for development. Next to go on auction: the old Infirmary hospital site.

That willingness to help rather than hinder development reflects the new thinking within the municipal administration: that a strong urban core is the best way to develop the municipal economy and even the provincial one.

If that’s the case, MacDonald says, the city has to do more to make Spring Garden a superior shopping experience.

"Everything is done for the big-box stores," he says. "Spring Garden Road is the heart of Halifax. It deserves its share of incentives."

Andy Fillmore, the city’s design manager, says tax incentives are only one thing under consideration to take Spring Garden Road to the next level as a business destination. Widening sidewalks and even turning the street into a pedestrian mall are other possibilities.

Then, who knows? Spring Garden Road’s rebirth may be just beginning.

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by kph06

This would be quite a change:


Source (and more images)

Wow... that is not a reno, that is a total redo.
Not a huge fan of the design. It is ok, but fairly uninspired. But still a significant improvement over what is already there.

[Wishblade]

According to that article City Centre Atlantic will actually have more units than the Trillium which is very decieving given the vast difference in height. It states the Trillium has 84 units to CCA's 97.

[halifaxboyns]

Trillium is on a vary narrow but long lot - so I'm not surprised by this. CC has a lot more room to play with in both width and depth, so you could get more units in the space.

The Citadell Hotel drawing is interesting - that's much more than what they originally said they were going to do. I'm concerned about the level of commercial along Brunswick Street though. I'm not sure if there are enough people in that area to support that much commercial. Then again, 2 hotels plus a residential building (with 3 existing high density residential buildings near by) - it might work. Could be an interesting pedestrian oriented commercial strip.

The design itself isn't really stunning or flies off the page - but still it's a big step up from what was there before. Makes me wonder about HbD though...would the proposal go beyond the existing post bonus height limits?

The article about SGR is great. There are two comments which stand out to me in this article:

In the months ahead, Halifax Regional Municipality plans to sell off hectares of vacant land in the Spring Garden area for development. Next to go on auction: the old Infirmary hospital site. That willingness to help rather than hinder development reflects the new thinking within the municipal administration: that a strong urban core is the best way to develop the municipal economy and even the provincial one.
To this I say - it's about time. I think there just needed to be a kick and the convention centre $ I think has created buzz and energy...it's got people talking and thinking. This is good.

But my favorite comment is Danny Chedrawe's:
"In five years, we won’t even recognize Spring Garden Road," .
If he is right, I look forward to that day. I'm hopeful that all this development will finally get HRM to go ahead with the work they committed to doing on the urban realm improvements. But this is all very good buzz...

[Empire]

Originally Posted by kph06

This would be quite a change:


Source (and more images)

Too much precast..............

[beyeas]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

The article about SGR is great. There are two comments which stand out to me in this article:

That willingness to help rather than hinder development reflects the new thinking within the municipal administration: that a strong urban core is the best way to develop the municipal economy and even the provincial one.

If I only I could believe the rhetoric though.
If they truly think that, why did they choose to open up the new land for expanding BLIP? Now there is nothing they can because it will all be developed as of right, but they never should have opened up that land to begin. It is like they can't help themselves... they talk a big talk about strengthening the core, and then do things that shoot that in the foot.

Personally my favourite comment was the developer's comment calling the city out on the fact that if the city truly believes in strengthening the core then they better start subsidizing/incentivizing downtown development at the same level or better than they do sub-urban power centre retail.

[planarchy]

Originally Posted by beyeas

If they truly think that, why did they choose to open up the new land for expanding BLIP? Now there is nothing they can because it will all be developed as of right, but they never should have opened up that land to begin. It is like they can't help themselves... they talk a big talk about strengthening the core, and then do things that shoot that in the foot.[/B]

Exactly. Until they get out of the business of enabling and profiting off of large scale fringe development (not by taxes, but land sale), businesses downtown will struggle.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by beyeas

Wow... that is not a reno, that is a total redo.
Not a huge fan of the design. It is ok, but fairly uninspired. But still a significant improvement over what is already there.

I also think it is basic, but then again not every apartment building or hotel needs to be impressive. These are "background buildings" that mostly just need to function properly. The library is an example of a project that should be more architecturally ambitious, and it's only a few blocks away.

This is a great project for several reasons:

-The hotel is already there so they have a guaranteed tenant and there seems to be lots of demand for apartments.
-This can tie in with a redevelopment of the site across the street.
-The retail spaces have a good chance of being successful because visitors in hotels love to have restaurants and shops immediately nearby.
-I bet these buildings will fill in the skyline a bit from some angles.

And yeah, Spring Garden Road is doing very well.

[planarchy]

Originally Posted by someone123

I also think it is basic, but then again not every apartment building or hotel needs to be impressive. These are "background buildings" that mostly just need to function properly and look inoffensive. The library is an example of a project that should be more architecturally ambitious, and it's only a few blocks away.

This is a great project for several reasons:

-The hotel is already there so they have a guaranteed tenant and there seems to be lots of demand for apartments.
-This can tie in with a redevelopment of the site across the street.
-The retail spaces have a good chance of being successful because visitors in hotels love to have restaurants and shops immediately nearby.
-I bet these buildings will fill in the skyline a bit from some angles.

And yeah, Spring Garden Road is doing very well.

It's also nice to see that any surface parking, if still necessary for whatever reason, moved to the interior of the block.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by Empire

Too much precast..............

I think this modern style looks better than pre-cast on faux heritage elements.

Overall, I'm pleasantly suprised... so is this as of right, or does it have to go through the goon squad?

[worldlyhaligonian]

Credit: Citadelhotelmakeover.ca

[alps]

Boring building but a big improvement, and I'll be so glad to see that corner surface parking lot gone (or at least hidden). But it's also too bad that the hills in Halifax seem to lead to a lot of bad street level design with the blank walls. Same thing going on here as with the Nova Centre.

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by beyeas

If I only I could believe the rhetoric though.
If they truly think that, why did they choose to open up the new land for expanding BLIP? Now there is nothing they can because it will all be developed as of right, but they never should have opened up that land to begin. It is like they can't help themselves... they talk a big talk about strengthening the core, and then do things that shoot that in the foot.

Personally my favourite comment was the developer's comment calling the city out on the fact that if the city truly believes in strengthening the core then they better start subsidizing/incentivizing downtown development at the same level or better than they do sub-urban power centre retail.

I definately agree. But until there is a policy shift, I don't think you will see much of a shift from this for the forseeable future. But we can take comfort in the fact that they've realized that tax incentives for the downtown core are a good idea and moving towards them.

I look at this as a step forward.

As to the Citadell Hotel, the design is pretty interesting. I'm definately in favour of getting rid of as many surface parking lots in the City as possible. This design makes good use of the parcel, putting the building right up to the edge and then concealing the parking behind the building.

It looks like I was way off on the post bonus map. According to the HbD post bonus map, this area is in the rampart maximum heights. So with the exception of the parts falling under a viewplane, they can give'r.

Personally though - if you are going to talk about some interesting designs for hotels, I'd suggest the Coast Coal Harbour Hotel in Vancouver (alas no thread in the Vancouver section), but you can google some images. I like it because of the lobby concept - one in and out with garage and lobby under the podium and retail space facing the street. So no open parking.

Of course the other hotel design I'd love to see end up in Halifax is the Fairmont Pacific Rim.

[Keith P.]

I am old enough to remember the original Citadel Inn - it was affiliated with a Canadian chain called Seaway Hotels, which is now long gone. There is a neat pic of it shortly after it opened:

[bluenoser]

I think the original design actually looks pretty cool...

I'll always be disappointed with precast and I find the design similar to the Juno (?) building at Stadacona except not as timeless... Overall though I think this development will be great for this area. The street treatment is like night and day compared to what's there now and it will definitely impact the skyline, especially from the classic downtown Dartmouth viewpoint. You can see the current hotel on the right of this pic as the last of the cluster of taller buildings.

Originally Posted by q12

http://www.fivb.org/Vis2009/Images/GetImage.asmx?No=201131331