[Halifax] St. Pat's Crossing | ? m | 4x28 fl | U/C

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by teddifax

This could turn out just as bad as the previous development next door. The original proposal which was shot down callled for 4, 40 storey towers on each corner with I believe retail and office components below and a huge green space on the roof on the low rise portion. Instead they built that monstrosity that is Quinpool Centre and just like Scotia Square with very little streetscape commercial sites. Any new development anywhere has to be welcoming from the street as well as above. Why can't this city get this right. I get so frustrated with the way things are done here.

That takes me back. I lived in the area at the time and the development process for what is now Quinpool Center was indeed a fiasco, much like this one risks becoming. The locals were all up in arms about the original proposal, with all the usual "too tall" comments we are so used to hearing - probably from the current generation's parents or grandparents. What we ended up with was the slummy apartment tower at one end, a big parking lot out back and an ill-conceived small shopping mall along Quinpool. The original development of that was actually an enclosed mall with storefronts behind glass in an indoor space. Most/all of that is gone now with individual storefronts opening onto the street and no indoor connectivity, since the original design failed miserably.

[q12]

Here is an older (2001) density map


Source

[OldDartmouthMark]

From Wikipedia (if you want to take it as fact):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax,_Nova_Scotia

The metropolitan area had a population of 414,400 in 2014 with 297,943 in the urban area centred around Halifax Harbour.[4][5]

4. "Census Profile - Halifax Regional Municipality". Statistics Canada. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
5. "Census Profile - Halifax (population centre)". Statistics Canada. Retrieved March 7, 2012.

[hokus83]

Originally Posted by counterfactual

Classic. Which is why, once again, HRM was totally and completely incompetent in awarding it to the Provincial Government Bid, given the possibility government changes (as it did) and thus the committed funds dry up (probably).

Absolutely idiotic, especially, if I recall, the NS Gov's bid was the worst on all other counts (design, creativity, imagination, conformity to proposal requirements) and won basically on financial backing -- the Government.

If the Province isn't moving forward, announce that you're withdrawing the contract award. Re-issue a new one, and hope that private developers who got screwed the first time, will spend the time and money to try again.

This stuff is just vintage HRM planning. Honestly, I wonder if it's the Three Stooges running things over there. Astounding they managed to screw this up after years of careful planning by the local community group (Imagine Bloomfield) with far fewer resources.

I really hope that's what ends up happening to that site

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by hokus83

I really hope that's what ends up happening to that site

Me too, and I hope it happens soon. It's a big derelict dead zone in the neighbourhood. Kills me to see the potential lying fallow. And the longer the old buildings sit empty, the more run-down they'll become.

[someone123]

The ~300,000 "urban area" number is the population centre count that corresponds to a particular statistical construct. There's no implication that anybody not included in that count is far-flung or "rural". Most of the population outside of the population centre boundary is suburban. Those people commute to work. They're not farmers and fishermen.

[ILoveHalifax]

Have any of these people who think there are 116,000 people in the rural areas of Halifax ever gone for a drive out hwy 7 and back thru the Musquodoboit Valley?

[portapetey]

I recognize that many other cities have large geographies with a large population scattered loosely throughout. But I'm talking about HRM, and HRM has a tiny urban core relative to its enormous landmass.

The urban population centre - according to the definition laid out by Statistics Canada, and essentially anything that can reasonably be called "city" - has 300,000 people.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-re...1&geocode=0348

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-re...ustom=&TABID=2

Not sure why people are so resistant to this simple fact. I blame amalgamation - in the early 90s, people seemed to know that Halifax was a "metro" area of 250 - 300,000. With amalgamation and the sudden swell of 100,000 people, we lost our minds. ;-)

The point is simply that it's a small city, even smaller than people seem to think it is, and dreams of a downtown filled with 60-story buildings any time in the near future are unrealistic.

[fenwick16]

Originally Posted by portapetey

I recognize that many other cities have large geographies with a large population scattered loosely throughout. But I'm talking about HRM, and HRM has a tiny urban core relative to its enormous landmass.

The urban population centre - according to the definition laid out by Statistics Canada, and essentially anything that can reasonably be called "city" - has 300,000 people.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-re...1&geocode=0348

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-re...ustom=&TABID=2

Not sure why people are so resistant to this simple fact. I blame amalgamation - in the early 90s, people seemed to know that Halifax was a "metro" area of 250 - 300,000. With amalgamation and the sudden swell of 100,000 people, we lost our minds. ;-)

The point is simply that it's a small city, even smaller than people seem to think it is, and dreams of a downtown filled with 60-story buildings any time in the near future are unrealistic.

Isn't this all a matter of semantics? You might make a better point by stating what area you are referring to as the urban core and metro area.

All the information posted seems to indicate that there are about 390,000 people in an area of about 2500 square kilometers of the 5500 square kilometers of the county of Halifax. The remaining 20,000 - 25,000 people are in the other 3000 square kilometers. Are you disputing this point?

[someone123]

You're making it sound like Halifax is special when the settlement patterns are standard. Look up CMAs and UAs for every other city in the Maritimes, or Ottawa, Edmonton, etc. Or don't bother. They are all the same. You could argue they're all inflated, sure, but the methodology is consistent. There is no reason to make a point out of this because the idea of what a city of 400,000 ought to have is abstract and relative anyway. And people don't make a point of it in Edmonton or Moncton, just in Halifax where a negative spin is put on everything.

I don't think amalgamation has caused people to think the city is larger than it is, I think it's caused them to add the "Musquodoboit" caveat. For some reason the city itself is presented as a place where rural concerns should be given extra weight when the overwhelming majority of the population is within the city's commutershed and participates in the urban economy. That is the unfortunate side-effect of amalgamation.

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax

Have any of these people who think there are 116,000 people in the rural areas of Halifax ever gone for a drive out hwy 7 and back thru the Musquodoboit Valley?

[counterfactual]

I think someone123 and Fenwick have it -- only about 20,000 residents are basically rural. The rest are urban/suburban.

But in any case, I think the one thing we can all agree on, is having these rural areas suck, because now we have to constantly tolerate clowns like Dalrymple and Hendsbee in City Council representing these rural ridings.

But on the other hand, I don't really blame UARB (who did the amalgamation); they just did something that Provincial politicians have long been too spineless to do -- amalgate to cut costs and also centralize planning to avoid a race to the bottom among parts of the region competing for business. Ironically, there's still a race to the bottom as we keep granting re-zone affordances to outlying business parks that help kill downtown Halifax and Dartmouth. Also ironic: Halifax wasn't even the location that needed to be amalgamated the most. Rather, the countless ridiculously tiny and sparse counties and municipalities through out the province are a much, much, bigger problem, but no one, not even the UARB, has the spine to do that.

Typical Nova Scotia politics and policy.

[counterfactual]

As for this development, I don't think we "need" a skyscraper or tower, but I generally find all three of these proposals entirely underwhelming.

I do hope the huge skyscrapers proposed for nearby go forward, however.

BRING THE SHADOWS TO THE COMMONS! PROTECT THE CHILDREN FROM SUN BURNS.

(Public service message)

[counterfactual]

Originally Posted by someone123

You're making it sound like Halifax is special when the settlement patterns are standard. Look up CMAs and UAs for every other city in the Maritimes, or Ottawa, Edmonton, etc. Or don't bother. They are all the same. You could argue they're all inflated, sure, but the methodology is consistent. There is no reason to make a point out of this because the idea of what a city of 400,000 ought to have is abstract and relative anyway. And people don't make a point of it in Edmonton or Moncton, just in Halifax where a negative spin is put on everything.

I don't think amalgamation has caused people to think the city is larger than it is, I think it's caused them to add the "Musquodoboit" caveat. For some reason the city itself is presented as a place where rural concerns should be given extra weight when the overwhelming majority of the population is within the city's commutershed and participates in the urban economy. That is the unfortunate side-effect of amalgamation.

First rate post, as usual.

And the bolded portion--- soooo true.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by someone123

You're making it sound like Halifax is special when the settlement patterns are standard. Look up CMAs and UAs for every other city in the Maritimes, or Ottawa, Edmonton, etc. Or don't bother. They are all the same. You could argue they're all inflated, sure, but the methodology is consistent. There is no reason to make a point out of this because the idea of what a city of 400,000 ought to have is abstract and relative anyway. And people don't make a point of it in Edmonton or Moncton, just in Halifax where a negative spin is put on everything.

I don't think amalgamation has caused people to think the city is larger than it is, I think it's caused them to add the "Musquodoboit" caveat. For some reason the city itself is presented as a place where rural concerns should be given extra weight when the overwhelming majority of the population is within the city's commutershed and participates in the urban economy. That is the unfortunate side-effect of amalgamation.

Originally Posted by fenwick16

Isn't this all a matter of semantics? You might make a better point by stating what area you are referring to as the urban core and metro area.

All the information posted seems to indicate that there are about 390,000 people in an area of about 2500 square kilometers of the 5500 square kilometers of the county of Halifax. The remaining 20,000 - 25,000 people are in the other 3000 square kilometers. Are you disputing this point?

The amalgamation crack was tongue-in-cheek.

Nobody said Halifax was special. Any place that includes the population in thousands of square kilometres of forest in its population is similarly inflated, we can agree. However, Halifax does have the fourth largest land mass of any municipality in the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...Canada_by_area

In the context of a market for skyscraper construction, which is what brings us all to this forum, it matters that the the tiny urban core of about 270 square kilometres (as per the link i posted previously) with 300,000 people is surrounded mostly by low density suburban and rural development - with an additional 90,000 people scattered through about 2,200 square kilometres and another 20,000 or so scattered even more sparsely through another 2,500 (thanks for highlighting that, fenwick16), and with no other major population centres within several hours drive.

Halifax is very small and isolated relative to cities that are full of the kinds of skyscrapers some folks seem to think should be built here; that's all I am saying. Observing this is not "negative spin" as is so often the response here; it is pointing out that our city is really not doing so badly in the high-rise development department as many seem to think, caterwauling about how the NIMBYs are keeping us behind the times, a backwater, this and that and the other - which is definitely negative spin, and simply not true.

We are rather an overachiever for our size and location, in fact, and that should be seen as positive here.

[someone123]

It's pretty obvious there isn't demand for 40 storey skyscrapers all over the peninsula, but I don't think the spread out population in the hinterlands is very relevant either. What's more relevant is that there's a small but very desirable area that's hard to get in and out of.

When you look at the peninsula, highrises make a lot of sense. Most of the land area is not available for development because it is publicly-owned, built up more or less to its max zoning (these are the stable mostly single family areas), or has heritage buildings. There are very few opportunity sites downtown at this point. The North End is a bit different but there really isn't much land available.

I think this is why Halifax has lots of smaller highrises and why a lot of them are being built.

When you start to look at suburban land it's different. There's tons of supply. Lots of people don't want to live in greenfield suburbs though, and some who do prefer condo/highrise living.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's pretty obvious there isn't demand for 40 storey skyscrapers all over the peninsula, but I don't think the spread out population in the hinterlands is very relevant either.

That's exactly my point.

Urban centres of 300,000 people that aren't part of much larger urban agglomerations just don't have 40 and 60 story buildings. The small villages and towns that surround Halifax, in the context of market demand for this type of construction, are not relevant.

[portapetey]

Originally Posted by someone123

When you look at the peninsula, highrises make a lot of sense. Most of the land area is not available for development because it is publicly-owned, built up more or less to its max zoning (these are the stable mostly single family areas), or has heritage buildings. There are very few opportunity sites downtown at this point. The North End is a bit different but there really isn't much land available.

I think this is why Halifax has lots of smaller highrises and why a lot of them are being built.

Agreed, and we were doing pretty well in earlier decades, had some stagnation for a couple of decades, and are now (relatively) booming again. I think Halifax has a pretty impressive skyline for its size, and in a few years it will be even more so.

[portapetey]

In any case, of the three options, I prefer The Plaza. I also don't mind The Square; this kind of 5 to 7 story construction with courtyards in the middle works really well in European cities. Not sure it makes sense in Halifax, and on such a small lot, though.

The other option looks a mess; it's like trying to build a whole mini-downtown on a single small city block.

[q12]

Originally Posted by portapetey

That's exactly my point.

Urban centres of 300,000 people that aren't part of much larger urban agglomerations just don't have 40 and 60 story buildings. The small villages and towns that surround Halifax, in the context of market demand for this type of construction, are not relevant.

This argument is pointless. Any city can build towers as tall as they want. I think the number of people who say no to change in this city is getting smaller and smaller and those people are nervous about all these exciting developments rising above our skyline. Some of them still want us to look like Lunenburg.

We already have a tower 33 stories high so +40 stories is likely going to happen sometime soon. Whether it does or not will not be based on if there is a few thousand people living in rural areas. I would argue anyways that most of the 420,000 people who live in the boundaries of Halifax either regularly work, shop, play, eat at restaurants, visit doctors/hospitals etc. in the URBAN core of Halifax and are therefore very much connected to the city.