[Dartmouth] King's Wharf (Building E) | 85 m | 27 fl | U/C - Page 83

someone123 · #**1641** Posted **Apr 28, 2020, 11:51 PM**

Keith P. · #**1642** Posted **Apr 29, 2020, 11:17 AM**

^^^ If this was on the peninsula, The Usual Suspects would have already organized Friends of the Empty Lot and decried the proposal as "Too TALL!!!" as laid out in several articles on the CBC site.

eastcoastal · #**1643** Posted **Apr 29, 2020, 11:27 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by someone123

Source

I've always loved the stepped brick condo building that you can see in this photo. It just feels so generous to its inhabitants... I feel like the step-backs provide nice exterior spaces for the units while minimizing the shade, which I think is a positive in our climate/weather.

FuzzyWuz · #**1644** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 2:43 AM**

I'm very glad to see the next building being on Alderney. For a while this has looked like a stalled development. The E building will hide all the bare land.

someone123 · #**1645** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 3:18 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by FuzzyWuz

I'm very glad to see the next building being on Alderney. For a while this has looked like a stalled development. The E building will hide all the bare land.

It's too bad the King St lot west of Alderney has never been built on. Years ago there was a proposal for that site called The Sentinel that was never built. It would have tied King's Wharf in with downtown Dartmouth a little more.

Downtown Dartmouth suffers from having too many surface lots. It could use some larger developments with public structured parking. Not sure if the new tower at King's Wharf will offer that.

alps · #**1646** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 3:40 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I've always loved the stepped brick condo building that you can see in this photo. It just feels so generous to its inhabitants... I feel like the step-backs provide nice exterior spaces for the units while minimizing the shade, which I think is a positive in our climate/weather.

I love that building too. It was designed by Arthur Erickson. King's Landing in Toronto, another condo building by Erickson, has a similar design:

Photo source: Taxiarchos228 on Wikimedia Commons

OldDartmouthMark · #**1647** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 2:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by eastcoastal

I've always loved the stepped brick condo building that you can see in this photo. It just feels so generous to its inhabitants... I feel like the step-backs provide nice exterior spaces for the units while minimizing the shade, which I think is a positive in our climate/weather.

Yes, that's always been a building that I've admired as well. When that was built in the 1980s (IIRC), it felt like this building was going to be the catalyst to put downtown Dartmouth on the road to being a nice little built up downtown. Alderney landing was built around the same time and things were looking good. Then it all seemed to come to a grinding halt for a couple of decades.

One thing I like about this building is that it works well with its surroundings and its topography. Very well done. It is the first building of its kind that made me believe I could be happy living in a condo.

Also want to say that this building has aged well. While perhaps it may look a little 'dated' now (which is not necessarily a bad thing in this case) it remains attractive, and an aesthetic asset to the neighbourhood.

OldDartmouthMark · #**1648** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 2:11 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by someone123

It's too bad the King St lot west of Alderney has never been built on. Years ago there was a proposal for that site called The Sentinel that was never built. It would have tied King's Wharf in with downtown Dartmouth a little more.

Downtown Dartmouth suffers from having too many surface lots. It could use some larger developments with public structured parking. Not sure if the new tower at King's Wharf will offer that.

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the surface lots are just a symptom of not enough development interest in DT Dartmouth, though, but that's probably what you meant.

OldDartmouthMark · #**1649** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 2:12 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by alps

I love that building too. It was designed by Arthur Erickson. King's Landing in Toronto, another condo building by Erickson, has a similar design:

Photo source: Taxiarchos228 on Wikimedia Commons

That's nice too. Do you know when it was built?

eastcoastal · #**1650** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 4:06 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by alps

I love that building too. It was designed by Arthur Erickson. King's Landing in Toronto, another condo building by Erickson, has a similar design:

Photo source: Taxiarchos228 on Wikimedia Commons

Thanks for the info... seems like a generous way to make condos.

someone123 · #**1651** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 4:28 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Yeah, I agree with that. I think the surface lots are just a symptom of not enough development interest in DT Dartmouth, though, but that's probably what you meant.

Not sure if the Centre Plan is in place yet or not but that should have some impact.

The old system of appeals that could take year for an approval was a big impediment to development, particularly mid-sized projects above the as-of-right cutoff yet not big enough to justify a protracted battle.

IanWatson · #**1652** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 4:59 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by someone123

Not sure if the Centre Plan is in place yet or not but that should have some impact.

It is for the Package A areas (Downtown Dartmouth, centres, and corridors). Established neighbourhoods, institutional and recreational lands, employment lands, and updates to Downtown Halifax are part of Package B. It was scheduled for adoption in September, but COVID has scuttled that. It'll be up to the next Council to adopt Package B (elections scheduled for October).

I do believe the large surface lot next to Admiralty Place is owned by Develop NS.

someone123 · #**1653** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 5:02 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by IanWatson

I do believe the large surface lot next to Admiralty Place is owned by Develop NS.

Maybe they should be called Park NS.

Queen's Marque is an important step forward in developing the waterfront but before that it the previous major development was Bishop's Landing circa 2000.

Keith P. · #**1654** Posted **Apr 30, 2020, 9:07 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by someone123

Maybe they should be called Park NS.

Queen's Marque is an important step forward in developing the waterfront but before that it the previous major development was Bishop's Landing circa 2000.

The usual breakneck pace of the former WDC, now Develop NS.

Colin May · #**1655** Posted **May 2, 2020, 12:19 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keith P.

The usual breakneck pace of the former WDC, now Develop NS.

Expropriated March 31 1978 to access federal money for 'urban renewal' and then all the homes were torn down. Mortgage rates a few years later hit 22.5% for 5 years, and Pierre Trudeau has the record for the largest number of residential mortgage foreclosures in Canadian history. Downtown never took off because the council was obsessed with smashing rocks aka 'developing' Burnside, with the generous assistance/debt burden of federal money. The only reason downtown Dartmouth is attracting interest is the high cost of residential family homes across the harbour driven by Universities expanding into Grade 12+ degrees and an influx of foreign students who tend to dodge the basket weaving and touchy feely courses and settle on engineering,math and the sciences. I have read several Master level theses from the mid nineties and compared them with those of more recent years and the latter look and read more like high school essays, all in relation to landfills. Fryzuk from 1995 is a monumental study, others of more recent vintage lack detail, have extensive quotes from newspaper articles and opinion pieces, and illustrated with photos which add nothing.

FuzzyWuz · #**1656** Posted **May 2, 2020, 12:25 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by alps

I love that building too. It was designed by Arthur Erickson. King's Landing in Toronto, another condo building by Erickson, has a similar design:

Photo source: Taxiarchos228 on Wikimedia Commons

Looks like a starfleet academy dormitory

OldDartmouthMark · #**1657** Posted **May 2, 2020, 2:13 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colin May

Expropriated March 31 1978 to access federal money for 'urban renewal' and then all the homes were torn down.

Thanks for the history lesson, Colin. I lived in the area at the time and can remember those houses being in existance. Did not know why they were torn down, though. Seems a waste, looking at it with 20/20 hindsight, tearing down houses where people lived, only to leave it as empty lots for over 40 years (much like the Park Avenue empty lots that you've commented on in the past).

Here's a photo from the Halifax Municipal Archives from before Admiralty Place was built. The dating is unsure on the archives site, but I would estimate it as the late 1970s, given that the old wooden ferries (built at Smith and Rhuland in Lunenburg) are still in use in the photo, and that Queen Square exists (built 1975). Memory tells me that the old ferries were taken out of service around 1980. Must be before 1978 also, as that's when Alderney Park (shown as a parking lot in the photo) was built.

For the sake of interest, here are a couple more shots showing the current ferry terminal being built (around 1978 or 79?), which also show the Admiralty Place site:

Photo of the corner from around 1970:

A beauty shot of the corner from sometime in the 1980s:

Colin May · #**1658** Posted **May 2, 2020, 8:42 PM**

Hi Mark. Look at the first photo and the dark 2 storey wood shingled home on King (almost at the edge of the photo). The owner was a lady who took in lodgers and rented out a few rooms. She begged the city to allow her to stay there until they were ready to build. She stayed there for a brief period. Former Alderman Norman Crawford told me all about the fiasco and took me to see the lady after she was sent on her way. She moved to the a house on the corner of Portland and MacKay ( or perhaps James). She was no longer able to rent out of rooms and Norman was a frequent visitor - his way of keeping in touch with voters, although she was just a few blocks beyond the boundary of his ward. Perhaps the province will swap the site for Alderney Manor,built 1973, build a replacement and seniors will continue to have have a harbour view. King street lot is slightly smaller.
The empty lot is now assessed at $0 and in 2019 it was $3,008,600; until 2017 it had been assessed at $0.

OldDartmouthMark · #**1659** Posted **May 4, 2020, 1:03 AM**

Hi Colin, very interesting story. It's too bad there wasn't a little more heart in those matters. At least he kept in touch with her.

I don't understand why the assessment would vary so ridiculously... must be city math?

alps · #**1660** Posted **May 10, 2020, 2:05 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

That's nice too. Do you know when it was built?

King's Landing was finished in 1984, while Admiralty Place was completed in 1987. Both buildings were designed around 1982 with the involvement of another firm, called "Cowle and Martin Associates", but I haven't been able to find more information on this company except that they were based in Toronto. Seems like both buildings were developed by Rampart Enterprises Ltd. I wonder what brought them to Dartmouth?