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

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

That's why NC is also a good deal... or proportionally an even better deal a whole building with 1/3 of the cost for the city. NC will also recover some of its costs through the property taxes on the private components and the operations.

Now, if only we could get a stadium or transit deal in place! It has to be next on the agenda.

I agree on transit and / or stadium.

I'm neutral on the NC. Any developer could have put similar buildings on that lot without a new CC in it, so the government would not have been on the hook at all. (Or maybe it wouldn't have been approved without that government backing...(see "Thiel".))

I won't weigh in on the value of the CC itself to the city.

I've always been pro-Nova Centre as far as seeing the overall structure get built. But as to the CC portion of the structure - I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[curnhalio]

Originally Posted by portapetey

That's how I look at it too.

But to Keith's point, could we really afford even the $23.7?

It's an interesting question, and like most interesting questions I don't think there's a clean answer.

How do we assess whether we got our money's worth? What's the value of a monumental civic building to the community? Clearly, to some people, there is no value. To others, there's no price too big.

What's the value of it getting airtime on CNN? Or the value of it being listed as one of the top new builds of 2014? Will people decide to come here just to see it? The "interesting questions sans clear answers" are endless. I'm glad it stood out for being pretty as opposed to, say, being nominated for Canada's version of the Carbuncle Cup (which doesn't exist to my knowledge, but should)

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/carbuncle-cup-2015-winner-announced/5077354.article

[Colin May]

We always get our share, we always have projects.
Trudeau has said that provinces and municipalities will decide how the money is spent, implying that federal and provincial politicians will not be deciding what gets done in a town/city. If Trudeau sticks to the promise it will be a major change from previous decades where Liberal/Tory, and occasional NDP, politican/fixer gets his/her way.
Dexter didn't want to fund the library but caved in when John Baird came to town and told the media he was willing to toss in a max of $18,000,000.
In Dartmouth in the first Chretien splurge we were given money for a Sportsplex bingo hall, smoking allowed, sold to the public as a 'wellness centre'.
Apparently Trudeau believes that local people are the best people to decide how to spend infrastructure money, not the local MP and not the main provincial MP.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by curnhalio

What's the value of it getting airtime on CNN?

None.

Or the value of it being listed as one of the top new builds of 2014?

Nil.

Will people decide to come here just to see it?

No.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Colin May

In Dartmouth in the first Chretien splurge we were given money for a Sportsplex bingo hall, smoking allowed, sold to the public as a 'wellness centre'.

Your tax dollars at work. That would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The waste is simply staggering.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Colin May

We always get our share, we always have projects.
Trudeau has said that provinces and municipalities will decide how the money is spent, implying that federal and provincial politicians will not be deciding what gets done in a town/city. If Trudeau sticks to the promise it will be a major change from previous decades where Liberal/Tory, and occasional NDP, politican/fixer gets his/her way.
Dexter didn't want to fund the library but caved in when John Baird came to town and told the media he was willing to toss in a max of $18,000,000.
In Dartmouth in the first Chretien splurge we were given money for a Sportsplex bingo hall, smoking allowed, sold to the public as a 'wellness centre'.
Apparently Trudeau believes that local people are the best people to decide how to spend infrastructure money, not the local MP and not the main provincial MP.

I was going to say, that was a big flaw in how the federal government operated. Hopefully it does change. The earmarked cost sharing was great for political points ("Government X is building Y!") but hard on smaller and poorer jurisdictions.

I don't have the source now but I remember reading a paper a while back of the impact of this kind of funding in the 70's and 80's in Canada. It was hugely slanted in favour of provinces like Ontario that were able to participate heavily in every program and slanted against small provinces like PEI and Newfoundland that couldn't. And it's wasteful all around because it encourages jurisdictions to invest in the sexy class of project of the day rather than what is most needed locally.

All that being said, from the perspective of Nova Scotia, it totally makes sense to participate heavily in cost-sharing programs, even if the debt goes up. What matters from the province's perspective is the provincial debt-to-gdp ratio and when the federal government is footing part of the bill it's easy to take on a bit of debt for a good project and watch the ratio go down over time because of the added jobs and, if it's a good project, the long-term economic payoff. It does not make sense for governments to focus singularly on eliminating debt by aggressively cutting back on spending. That's how you end up with slower economic growth, and less economic growth makes the existing debt hard to pay off. It's actually quite different from a lot of household type financing. It's even less related at the federal level where there is indirect control over the money supply.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by someone123

I was going to say, that was a big flaw in how the federal government operated. Hopefully it does change. The earmarked cost sharing was great for political points ("Government X is building Y!") but hard on smaller and poorer jurisdictions.

I don't have the source now but I remember reading a paper a while back of the impact of this kind of funding in the 70's and 80's in Canada. It was hugely slanted in favour of provinces like Ontario that were able to participate heavily in every program and slanted against small provinces like PEI and Newfoundland that couldn't. And it's wasteful all around because it encourages jurisdictions to invest in the sexy class of project of the day rather than what is most needed locally.

All that being said, from the perspective of Nova Scotia, it totally makes sense to participate heavily in cost-sharing programs, even if the debt goes up. What matters from the province's perspective is the provincial debt-to-gdp ratio and when the federal government is footing part of the bill it's easy to take on a bit of debt for a good project and watch the ratio go down over time because of the added jobs and, if it's a good project, the long-term economic payoff. It does not make sense for governments to focus singularly on eliminating debt by aggressively cutting back on spending. That's how you end up with slower economic growth, and less economic growth makes the existing debt hard to pay off. It's actually quite different from a lot of household type financing. It's even less related at the federal level where there is indirect control over the money supply.

Great post.

[someone123]

Source

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

Great post.

Except for the last paragraph. Increasing the provincial debt for projects that are not a priority just to get some federal crumbs is part of the reason why we have a debt that we have no chance of ever being repaid.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by someone123

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZLu9HNWcAAqH8J.jpg

Nice find. I like that perspective. It will make a good promotional image for the city once the Nova Centre is completed.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Nice find. I like that perspective. It will make a good promotional image for the city once the Nova Centre is completed.

The renovated TD building looks good too. It used to be one of my least favourite downtown office towers in Halifax.

It'll look a lot different once the cladding is up on the Nova Centre and the Roy Building is farther along.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Except for the last paragraph. Increasing the provincial debt for projects that are not a priority just to get some federal crumbs is part of the reason why we have a debt that we have no chance of ever being repaid.

I don't believe that it won't ever be repaid, or at least paid down to a manageable level... and people my age will be burdened by said debt anyway.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by someone123

The renovated TD building looks good too. It used to be one of my least favourite downtown office towers in Halifax.

It'll look a lot different once the cladding is up on the Nova Centre and the Roy Building is farther along.

I feel like Roy, Maple, and now Alexander are going to be the developments that truly revive downtown. Add NC for bigger scale events and it will be a happening place in the summer.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

I feel like Roy, Maple, and now Alexander are going to be the developments that truly revive downtown. Add NC for bigger scale events and it will be a happening place in the summer.

Bishop's Landing had a pretty noticeable effect and the construction happening right now is equivalent to about 3 of those developments. Bishop's Landing was also a bit heavier on retail space and more isolated, so it produced less of a spillover effect.

You can also see the difference between Spring Garden Road and Barrington. Both have similar amounts of retail space and traffic but Spring Garden Road has more residents and Barrington has more office workers. On Spring Garden Road, even when a space isn't rented out to a more regional major retailer it ends up being filled by locally-oriented shops and services. Once Barrington has some more residents it will have a more reliable base like that to draw on. I think we'll also see a bit more foot traffic and retail on the sidestreets, and more chains.

After this construction hopefully there will be another round with the Discovery Centre building, Green Lantern, and maybe something for the United Gulf site. That would really bring up the population density along that stretch. It is hard to have high population density when there are large empty lots. Maple is tall for example but it's equivalent to having maybe 4 storey residential buildings covering the empty space around it. Similarly if you average out Bishop's Landing with the nearby empty or underused waterfront lots the population density is actually quite low. I'm would guess that the rowhouse neighbourhoods near downtown are more densely populated.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

I feel like Roy, Maple, and now Alexander are going to be the developments that truly revive downtown. Add NC for bigger scale events and it will be a happening place in the summer.

Has anyone looked at the numbers of units, numbers of bedrooms per unit, etc. and tried to estimate the number of people who might live in any or all of these new buildings?

I wonder just how much the impact in the downtown population will be? Certainly hundreds...

[someone123]

Originally Posted by portapetey

Has anyone looked at the numbers of units, numbers of bedrooms per unit, etc. and tried to estimate the number of people who might live in any or all of these new buildings?

I wonder just how much the impact in the downtown population will be? Certainly hundreds...

Usually the reports and news coverage include estimates of the number of eventual residents. I think it's just a rough estimate based on the number of bedrooms and existing household sizes in the city.

The estimate for the Maple was 450-500 residents in around 300 units. I think the Alexander is around 200 units and Roy around 150 units. I would guess the estimate population for these three buildings when they're fully occupied would be around 1,000.

For context, the Halifax metro area has averaged 4,000 new residents per year for the past 3 years.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by someone123

Usually the reports and news coverage include estimates of the number of eventual residents. I think it's just a rough estimate based on the number of bedrooms and existing household sizes in the city.

The estimate for the Maple was 450-500 residents in around 300 units. I think the Alexander is around 200 units and Roy around 150 units. I would guess the estimate population for these three buildings when they're fully occupied would be around 1,000.

For context, the Halifax metro area has averaged 4,000 new residents per year for the past 3 years.

Thanks. 1000 or so was my rough guess too, but I didn't bother doing any math to confirm it.

This report:

http://theoryandpractice.planning.dal.ca.../mplan_projects/wgregory_thesis_2014.pdf

puts the "downtown" census tracts bounded by Cornwallis, North Park, Cunard, Robie, and Inglis at just under 15,000 people in 2011, so an increase of 1,000 would be an increase of 6.7% from these three buildings alone - a great start!

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Your tax dollars at work. That would be funny if it wasn't so sad. The waste is simply staggering.

Every province has crazy 'Infrastructure' projects.
In the Sportsplex deal the Liberals on the board were trying to get money for a hockey glove room in an effort to entice the Q league to Dartmouth rather than Halifax.
In the federal infrastructure deal the details went on for pages : all media releases had to be approved by Ottawa, the size of signs were set by Ottawa and the size of the 'Canada' logo was set by Ottawa. Some people think Harper invented the obsession with signs,PR and government recognition; he just did what had previously been done.
Too bad I threw away all my Sportsplex minutes.
My understanding of infrastructure spending is that spending is distributed to each province on a per capita basis. After that the 3 levels get down to arguing over what to fund and the feds,aka the lead cabinet minister in the province/region, usually win.
I think the francophone centre will be near the top of the metro list if there is a suitable site. Top of the list will be any project that can start immediately and therefore the HRM capital budget and the NS capital budget will show where the money goes this year, quite possible we'll see money going towards school construction as well as sewer and water projects.

[RangerNS]

Originally Posted by Colin May

In the Sportsplex deal the Liberals on the board were trying to get money for a hockey glove room in an effort to entice the Q league to Dartmouth rather than Halifax.

To put the sportsplex deal in context (if that context was the Chretien liberals day-1 billion (or 5 billion?) infrastructure spend: at the time, the Dartmouth water system was crumbling. Well, maybe not the pipes, but heavy use of chlorine. As a country well guy, it was undrinkable. I'm sure it met the standards, but it wasn't "good".

Dartmouth gets pennies from God, and they spend it on a bingo hall.

[Colin May]

Originally Posted by RangerNS

To put the sportsplex deal in context (if that context was the Chretien liberals day-1 billion (or 5 billion?) infrastructure spend: at the time, the Dartmouth water system was crumbling. Well, maybe not the pipes, but heavy use of chlorine. As a country well guy, it was undrinkable. I'm sure it met the standards, but it wasn't "good".

Dartmouth gets pennies from God, and they spend it on a bingo hall.

One third of the water in the pipes was leaking into the ground. I ca't remember if this was disclosed in public or during an in camera session. I kept a lot of documents for many years but eventually threw them out.