Post some pictures of your city! II

[Rico Rommheim]

Took a stroll on the PVM esplanade on a mild and quiet Tuesday night.


PVM Esplanade 1 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 2 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 3 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 4 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 5 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 6 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 7 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr


PVM Esplanade 8 by Foofoo MacShoe, on Flickr

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Very cool images. The area has a certain ring to it.

[Hali87]

Spring Garden area from the Library:








Outside:














A bit further west; the Coburg/Seymour area near the northern edge of Dal's main campus (Spring Garden becomes Coburg east of Robie):






New construction. This one has a tiny grocery store on the ground floor:










Dal recently added a third (?) concert hall to its Arts Centre (joining the older Cohn and Dunn theatres in the same building), and it looks like they have been sponsored by the Fountain family, also associated with Neptune Theatre:














The mural is based on traditional Mi'kmaw motifs:








The old residence building on the left is part of King's College, which is nominally separate from Dal, but to illustrate how close they are, the gates and yellow street sign are Dal's. From a student perspective they're about 90% integrated with each other although each maintains its own governance, sports teams, facilities, staff/profs, courses, and scholarships. King's is a mostly-undergrad, English-style arts college, although they offer post-grad degrees in Journalism:

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ Very cool images. The area has a certain ring to it.

[Innsertnamehere]

Halifax just looks and feels like a much larger city than it actually is to me.

[Echoes]

Great Halifax shots.

[Rico Rommheim]

Halifax looks legit.

[Hali87]

A lot of people complain about the new developments along Spring Garden (first few photos) being too "generic", but I'm not sure that generic is the right word for it. They're large, modern, and sleek in texture compared to what was there before (while a lot of old buildings remain), but I don't know of anywhere else that truly looks like that. If anything a lot of the newer architecture on and around Spring Garden goes out of its way to be eye-catching and weird, almost cartoonish. But generic is not a word I would use.

Then again maybe I'm just too young to remember "what it's supposed to be like".

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ Very cool images. The area has a certain ring to it.

LOL, Looks great at night.

Now Montreal has 2 Big O's!

[TorontoDrew]

Dusk on Wabash by Jeremy Gilbert, on Flickr

Fox grooming on the Woodbine Beach boardwalk by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

3335 - crossing over from another dimension by allan parke, on Flickr

3334 - sugar beach by allan parke, on Flickr

To Toronto by A Great Capture, on Flickr

Sunrise over RC Harris Water Filtration Plant by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

Arctic weather returns to Toronto by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

The Leuty before dawn by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

Walking in a Winter Wonderland by A Great Capture, on Flickr

Public washroom on Queen St East by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

Winter Storm - i was not alone by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

Yellow Brick House by chrisd666, on Flickr

Untitled by Alex Meoko, on Flickr

More Snow Later Today by A Great Capture, on Flickr

Fresh snowfall at the RC Harris by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

Toronto Harbourfont - February 2022 by A Great Capture, on Flickr

City sunset view from Leslie Street Spit - Tommy Thompson Park by Phil Marion (212 million views), on Flickr

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

A lot of people complain about the new developments along Spring Garden (first few photos) being too "generic", but I'm not sure that generic is the right word for it. They're large, modern, and sleek in texture compared to what was there before (while a lot of old buildings remain), but I don't know of anywhere else that truly looks like that. If anything a lot of the newer architecture on and around Spring Garden goes out of its way to be eye-catching and weird, almost cartoonish. But generic is not a word I would use.

Then again maybe I'm just too young to remember "what it's supposed to be like".

I tend to agree. I think they are not bad buildings overall. If I have a criticism it's that the city seems to have a somewhat weak plan in place for growing the commercial area geographically. The plan was a bit restrictive before and seems likely to become woefully out of step now and lead to small, constantly reworked commercial developments with a large step down to preserved residential areas nearby. It would be good to ask how SGR should look if the entire stretch from Barrington to Oxford is developed (and will tower-in-park sites ever get redone, etc.). If there were more of a vision of this and fine-grained preservation then maybe some of the old gems could have been preserved without much if any drawback as far as new development getting built.

The Dalhousie area is one of those places that shows how "big" the inner city is. It is not dramatically high density or a huge city but you can walk 2 km outside of downtown in any direction and still be in mixed, originally pre-war medium density areas with some highrises. It is not something that is normally associated with Halifax-sized cities in North America because most cities that have the kind of institutions and historical urban core Halifax does grew a lot more. It's becoming more of an outlier since the city is growing a lot now; it's not like New Orleans or Charleston. Toronto is a similar outlier but not the same style or scale of city and until the postwar era followed a more standard economic path.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Untitled by Alex Meoko, on Flickr

nice hooter they caught there

beautiful Great Gray Owl

[zoomer]

Looking at the giant Montreal circle/ring pictures I keep expected Clifford the Big Red Dog to jump through there at any minute.

Love those Toronto shots TorontoDrew. Nice to see some fresh views and not just big buildings as fun as though are too. This picture below made me sad though, just terrible how they incorporated that historic building especially the left hand side up against the glass wall. It’s like they sent it into a dark corner for a punishment. I see it has a Canada historic plaque - what’s it’s history/importance?

Yellow Brick House by chrisd666, on Flickr

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by someone123

If I have a criticism it's that the city seems to have a somewhat weak plan in place for growing the commercial area geographically. The plan was a bit restrictive before and seems likely to become woefully out of step now and lead to small, constantly reworked commercial developments with a large step down to preserved residential areas nearby.

Maybe, although in practice the commercial area has expanded pretty steadily - the main Spring Garden strip has basically expanded out to Sackville street on one end and Clyde on the other, with ~100% ground-floor commercial everywhere in between (often multiple floors of commercial). Past Clyde there are about 2 blocks of "preserved" residential and then Morris Street which itself has quite a bit of commercial. Along the edge of all this, South Park Street is now lined with commercial spaces again from basically Sackville to Morris where previously there were only a few scattered storefronts mixed in with things like the old CBC building.

In the other direction, Brunswick now has consistent storefronts between Duke and Cogswell, effectively linking up with the Gottingen strip (which itself is becoming more retail-oriented). Pushing toward the waterfront there are things like Queen's Marque and the Cunard Block, and ultimately Cogswell. Even Agricola's retail area seems to be spreading (though not really "shifting") north. And then there are areas like Richmond Yards and the Young-Bayers corridor which already had scattered commercial spaces but will probably feel "more commercial" as they infill with large, mixed-use developments. Plus Barrington has added more retail space both north and south of downtown.

One of the saving graces in Halifax is that even though there are lowrise residential blocks that will never get redeveloped or allow much retail, most of these areas are not very large and there's not much actual distance between the areas that can be intensified.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Maybe, although in practice the commercial area has expanded pretty steadily - the main Spring Garden strip has basically expanded out to Sackville street on one end and Clyde on the other, with ~100% ground-floor commercial everywhere in between (often multiple floors of commercial). Past Clyde there are about 2 blocks of "preserved" residential and then Morris Street which itself has quite a bit of commercial. Along the edge of all this, South Park Street is now lined with commercial spaces again from basically Sackville to Morris where previously there were only a few scattered storefronts mixed in with things like the old CBC building.

Sure, but these are examples of the fixed supply of circa 1960 commercial zones getting turned into new higher density commercial mixed use zones. There were still lots of opportunities like this as of 2010 or so but they're dwindling now, and future expansion is going to get more difficult as there is heavy resistance to altering more residential areas. It's not the end of the world if the downtown-like areas get heavily constrained and new areas farther away develop, but I think it's worse than if some of the mediocre key sites got overhauled. I wonder what the zoning is like for the sites around Cathedral Lane (the Smitty's Building, that weird modern townhouse, and the apartment tower at 45 degrees to the street). It should be possible to build basically a new landmark commercial development there. Same thing goes for one block farther west.

The little commercial area on SGR near Robie is going to be more or less completely demolished, much like the Queen Street part. None of those buildings are architectural masterpieces but I think the city is likely going to lose most of its Edwardian and later commercial areas (while in some cases residential "gaps" are preserved in place).

Then along Robie there is a landlord doing mass demos of circa 1900 houses that are under something like a 3 storey height limit. A similar trashing of Young Ave happened and the city basically failed to address the problem. Mostly they just tried to obstruct new development and make sure it was low density residential, because the by then demolished heritage houses were low density residential.

[Rico Rommheim]

Amazing TO shots wow.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Looking at the giant Montreal circle/ring pictures I keep expected Clifford the Big Red Dog to jump through there at any minute.

Love those Toronto shots TorontoDrew. Nice to see some fresh views and not just big buildings as fun as though are too. This picture below made me sad though, just terrible how they incorporated that historic building especially the left hand side up against the glass wall. It’s like they sent it into a dark corner for a punishment. I see it has a Canada historic plaque - what’s it’s history/importance?

Yellow Brick House by chrisd666, on Flickr

This is part of the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering campus. You can find old victorian homes across the UofT campus left intact just like this that act as offices for faculty.

Like this one, if you look at streetview it's not a facadamy, the building just grew off the right side of the house.
https://www.google.com/maps/search/Unive...052,51a,35y,275.57h,46.07t/data=!3m1!1e3
Max Gluskin House .... University Of Toronto Department Of Economics .... Toronto, Ontario, Canada by Greg's Southern Ontario (Catching Up Slowly), on Flickr

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ Very cool images. The area has a certain ring to it.

In those images, if one didn't know the ring was public art, it almost looks like someone added it to a photo to emphasize something.

[Luisito]

Awesome shots of Halifax. Thanks for sharing them Hali87. 😎

I used to live in an apartment building close to South Street. I had an awesome view of much of the south end and downtown. It's nice to see all the new developments around there. I want to see Fenwick tower be dethroned as the tallest building. LOL

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Luisito

I want to see Fenwick tower be dethroned as the tallest building. LOL

I'm pretty sure the tower going up on Quinpool (next to the Rotary) and Richmond Yards are each on track to be a few m taller than Fenwick (which IIRC is in the 90-100m range). There are also a handful of ~100m buildings proposed along the Dartmouth waterfront including these 3 just off of Wyse:

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