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  #101  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2014, 3:43 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Dmajackson View Post
The preliminary presentation to the Design Review Committee for this project will be next week. They've provided this very detailed document (warning it's 90 pages long!!).

Preliminary Presentation - Site Plan Approval Process - 22nd Commerce Square

I read a good chunk of the document and while I still have reservations concerning the south tower (the overhang and the accordion section) I have more optimism for how this will turn out. The street level appears to be excellent and I am excited to hear more about the central atrium building. One thing that hasn't been mentioned but is interesting is the parking situation. There will be three levels under most of the site BUT due to economics they will be introduced stacked, high density parking to be used by the valet service at the hotel and condos. This roughly doubles the spaces created per floor. Also they are targetting L.E.E.D. ceritfication so there will be the already known accordion solar panels, roof-top solar panels (for hot water heating), rain water collection system for use in the buildings' plumbing, a high number of bicycle parking spaces, a wider sidewalk on Hollis Street, and some new street trees.
Excellent. Thanks, DJ.

Great info about the parking. I quite like that-- would be great to have three levels of underground parking right in the heart of downtown.

More developments like this = more underground parking = more competition among parking spaces = easier to park and (hopefully) less expensive.
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  #102  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2014, 3:49 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
Yep. It's pretty absurd that they've surrounded it with scaffolding to catch loose bits of masonry, rather than actually repair the thing properly. The worst of the mould has been removed, and employees are again working in the building, but I've been inside the lobby since they re-opened it--it still smells stuffy and mildewy. No wonder people are so willing to say "demolish it". But it's not the building; it's the horrible caretaking.
Can't be seen to spend any money on restoring government buildings in richy rich well-to-do snobby downtown Halifax!

Certainly, not when we need to save every single penny of provincial dollars in order to throw hundreds of millions at industries that are the future of this province, and the global economy, like... paper mills.

No, let the Dennis rot. That money is better spent elsewhere.
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  #103  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2014, 3:53 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
I don't know exactly how recent this is, but various iterations of it seem to keep cropping up through the years. A sort of gentle facadectomy of the Dennis and wrap-around development on the adjacent empty lots.

Comes from this larger doc featuring reports, etc., about the site.
FWIW, this is actually quite a good document.

If only City and Province did what they say they were to do.
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  #104  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2014, 2:26 PM
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ns_kid ns_kid is offline
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Originally Posted by counterfactual View Post
Honestly, at this point, we can't trust the lecherous Provincial Government to do anything about the building, probably only let it go further down the drain.
I agree that the Dennis Building deserves to be properly and sensitively preserved and repurposed. This is the kind of cause the good folks at Heritage Trust should be expending their political capital on, rather than protecting windblown vacant lots from the scourge of highrise development.

That said, I have heard the Province accused of many things but never of lechery. Was that part of the Liberals' plan to do Nova Scotians first?
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  #105  
Old Posted Jan 3, 2014, 4:36 PM
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Originally Posted by ns_kid View Post
I agree that the Dennis Building deserves to be properly and sensitively preserved and repurposed. This is the kind of cause the good folks at Heritage Trust should be expending their political capital on, rather than protecting windblown vacant lots from the scourge of highrise development.

That said, I have heard the Province accused of many things but never of lechery. Was that part of the Liberals' plan to do Nova Scotians first?
I meant lustful to spend Halifax taxdollars on other things far, far, away. I would say that has applied to all Provincial Governments of all stripes since the mid 20th Century.
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  #106  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 1:47 AM
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To no ones surprise the Heritage Trust is against any alterations to the heritage buildings included in this proposal. HRM Planning staff are recommending approval of the recommendations.

Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia Letter to Hertiage Advisory Committee

Commerce Square Report
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  #107  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 3:58 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Dmajackson View Post
To no ones surprise the Heritage Trust is against any alterations to the heritage buildings included in this proposal. HRM Planning staff are recommending approval of the recommendations.

Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia Letter to Hertiage Advisory Committee

Commerce Square Report
Great!

Meanwhile, the Paceys continue to fight the wrong battles. Wish they would dedicate their time to building up public/community knowledge of local history and heritage, including preserving memory. ie: push for neighbourhood identifiers / better heritage signage / more public info, etc.
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  #108  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 5:51 AM
Drybrain Drybrain is offline
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I actually agree with the HT to the very limited extent that I wish the project could be amended to better incorporate the old buildings. The way the Hayes Insurance and Merchants Bank building are treated in the rendering is really pretty shabby.

But as usual, the Heritage Trust see it as all or nothing. Rather than propose working with the developer to improve the project, they just want it rejected outright, which is lunacy. And essentially dooms them to irrelevance, since no one will take that seriously.
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  #109  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 6:15 AM
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
I actually agree with the HT to the very limited extent that I wish the project could be amended to better incorporate the old buildings. The way the Hayes Insurance and Merchants Bank building are treated in the rendering is really pretty shabby.

But as usual, the Heritage Trust see it as all or nothing. Rather than propose working with the developer to improve the project, they just want it rejected outright, which is lunacy. And essentially dooms them to irrelevance, since no one will take that seriously.
totally agreed.
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  #110  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 6:16 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Dmajackson View Post
To no ones surprise the Heritage Trust is against any alterations to the heritage buildings included in this proposal. HRM Planning staff are recommending approval of the recommendations.

Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia Letter to Hertiage Advisory Committee

Commerce Square Report
I'm assuming the date on the Heritage memo (January 16, 2013) is incorrect. Otherwise, they rejected this development even before it was proposed.
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  #111  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 6:26 AM
xanaxanax xanaxanax is offline
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Originally Posted by counterfactual View Post
I'm assuming the date on the Heritage memo (January 16, 2013) is incorrect. Otherwise, they rejected this development even before it was proposed.
They probably have thousands of letters typed up to reject every hypothetical development. Phil Pacey probably sits in his basement every night typing up rejection letters. You ever notice how the font and text on the Heritage Trust memos are slanted unevenly on every page without a consistent pattern and clearly look like they were typed up on a typewriter, he even scratched out the case number with a pen on the bottom page to write in a new one and a few of the pages have ink blotch marks from a typewriter. This probably evidence of insanity.

Last edited by xanaxanax; Jan 25, 2014 at 6:43 AM.
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  #112  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 6:56 AM
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Originally Posted by xanaxanax View Post
They probably have thousands of letters typed up to reject every hypothetical development. Phil Pacey probably sits in his basement every night typing up rejection letters. You ever notice how the font and text on the Heritage Trust memos are slanted unevenly on every page without a consistent pattern and clearly look like they were typed up on a typewriter, he even scratched out the case number with a pen on the bottom page to write in a new one and a few of the pages have ink blotch marks from a typewriter. This probably evidence of insanity.
haha... in all seriousness, I think the slanting is from the fact that it's a print off and then manually scanned into a PDF, probably by HRM staff using an optical scanner in a Xerox or something.

As for the Case number being scratched. Yeah, it seems like they wrote this memo for some other proposed development for these buildings.
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  #113  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 4:02 PM
Nilan8888 Nilan8888 is offline
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I thought the HT was staying OUT of the financial sector of town. Didn't Phil Pacey use that as an example of where high-rises could be built, to prove he wasn't being so unreasonable?

Oh wait, that was just in the Cogswell Interchange. How reasonable of him to not object in that one limited area that would require millions to demolish.
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  #114  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 5:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Nilan8888 View Post
I thought the HT was staying OUT of the financial sector of town. Didn't Phil Pacey use that as an example of where high-rises could be built, to prove he wasn't being so unreasonable?

Oh wait, that was just in the Cogswell Interchange. How reasonable of him to not object in that one limited area that would require millions to demolish.
Really, though.

Honestly, I think they're phoning it in. That HT memo is not a serious document, as DryBrain points out.
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  #115  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2014, 6:26 PM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by Dmajackson View Post
The preliminary presentation to the Design Review Committee for this project will be next week. They've provided this very detailed document (warning it's 90 pages long!!).

Preliminary Presentation - Site Plan Approval Process - 22nd Commerce Square

I read a good chunk of the document and while I still have reservations concerning the south tower (the overhang and the accordion section) I have more optimism for how this will turn out. The street level appears to be excellent and I am excited to hear more about the central atrium building. One thing that hasn't been mentioned but is interesting is the parking situation. There will be three levels under most of the site BUT due to economics they will be introduced stacked, high density parking to be used by the valet service at the hotel and condos. This roughly doubles the spaces created per floor. Also they are targetting L.E.E.D. ceritfication so there will be the already known accordion solar panels, roof-top solar panels (for hot water heating), rain water collection system for use in the buildings' plumbing, a high number of bicycle parking spaces, a wider sidewalk on Hollis Street, and some new street trees.
Been re-thinking this a bit, and wonder about using the three level parking garage as high density / parking valet.

While more parking, the merrier, I'm guessing this means that this will make it much less likely for the general public to use the parking garage in low demand times. Was thinking that three levels of parking right there could really help the parking situation in that area. I'm guessing most people driving into downtown are less likely to want a valet service parking their car for casual shopping or chores downtown.

Also, that means the parking is going to be much more expensive. Perhaps this is something CDAC could sugggest.
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  #116  
Old Posted Jan 27, 2014, 2:18 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Originally Posted by counterfactual View Post
Can't be seen to spend any money on restoring government buildings in richy rich well-to-do snobby downtown Halifax!

Certainly, not when we need to save every single penny of provincial dollars in order to throw hundreds of millions at industries that are the future of this province, and the global economy, like... paper mills.

No, let the Dennis rot. That money is better spent elsewhere.

Self quote, for the win:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/busines...ore-crown-land
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  #117  
Old Posted Jan 28, 2014, 2:50 AM
halifaxboyns halifaxboyns is offline
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I went through the HP comments - I cannot believe they submitted such a detailed report (but somehow I'm not surprised). They pose an interesting question regarding the heritage building Bylaw; but I don't see it as a development question (its an issue between the development permit versus building permit - two separate things).

Like most NIMBY groups - they read policies which have 'should' and 'may' to be 'must' - that's not the case. Policies are open to interpretation and really; it's always the subject of council's decision (not the heritage trust's).
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  #118  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 2:51 PM
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AllNovaScotia did have an article on this project last night. It goes into more detail but basically the Heritage Advisory Committee voted against recommending the alterations to the heritage buildings. Apparently the massing will overwhelm the heritage buildings.

Source : "THUMBS DOWN FOR THIEL'S RBC PROJECT" (January 31st, 2014) - AllNovaScotia.com
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  #119  
Old Posted Jan 31, 2014, 6:18 PM
halifaxboyns halifaxboyns is offline
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I don't think this was an unexpected outcome...but I'd be interested to see their exact feedback. Perhaps Waye might have access to that?
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  #120  
Old Posted Feb 1, 2014, 5:48 PM
fenwick16 fenwick16 is offline
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The more I look at this proposal the more I enthusiastically want it to proceed. I am even starting to like the cantilevered section. I don't think that the design of the new sections should be muted to decrease the contrast between new and old. The Heritage Advisory Committee voting against it is a concern since the TD Tower was unanimously approved by the Heritage Advisory Committee.

Looking at one of several renderings posted previously, I think that the owner/developer is doing a good job of maintaining the heritage streetscape. The Champlain building facade will be restored to the way it was 100 years ago with arches over the lower windows and restored to the original height. The Bank of Commerce Building will be restored in its entirety.

If it proceeds, one other great benefit is that the Royal Bank Tower will be replaced with something much better, in my opinion. There will be several blocks of tall, impressive buildings in a dense cluster (TD Tower, Bank of Montreal, 1801 Hollis Street and 22nd Commerce Square).

(source: http://22ndcommercesquare.ca/)

Last edited by fenwick16; Feb 1, 2014 at 6:05 PM.
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