Quote:
Originally Posted by kool maudit
Press Block looks good. Varied, well-scaled. Barrington could take its crown back from Spring Garden over time, particularly as the latter is becoming seedy and filled with people behaving in antisocial ways.
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Barrington changed in a very positive way in the 2010's but the 2020's have been a miss so far. It has had a lot of seemingly good development but then some very prominent storefronts have been empty (like in the Roy; owners holding out for high end tenants?). Some landlords do a better job than others at managing tenants. The developers of Press Block, Dexel, have a good track record of finding and keeping interesting tenants and I am hopeful some good businesses will move in. Design-wise Dexel's projects keep getting better and better.
The residential population around Barrington continues to grow and there are large projects like Meridian, which will have around 1,000 new residents. In the past Barrington was on the border of the 9-5 office district and that affect its vibrancy. Cogswell will probably also be a boost to Barrington as it will no longer be a dead end.
I like the little area around the Grand Parade and Province House. It has some truly great buildings like the Bank of NS and it had a medium scale with solid sandstone architecture. Press Block reinforces that, as did Queen's Marque and the TD tower reno. With a few tweaks of the public spaces around there and another comparable project around the base of George St it would be a great area.