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Originally Posted by fenwick16
I completely agree. I hope that in the near future the Heritage Trust will add people who are more rational in their objectives and are willing to work with the city and developers to promote a livable, interesting city. Maybe the Fusion group is the organization that can better meet that objective?
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I can't criticize someone for their hopes, I just wouldn't hold out too much hope for it. The trouble I have with HT, is that every last aspect of a building or streetscape must be preserved regardless of what may happen to a building during its existence. That building on Barrington by the Khyber, that had a fire in it in the early 90's or something, but the exterior façade survived. Nothing ever got built until recently because the exterior remained intact, and that's how Barrington looked when Cunard and Howe walked the Earth, so it had to stay that way. Heh we essentially had a prop from a movie set overlooking a busy street on a prime piece of land for about 20 years.
Also their concern about preservation has everything to do with the age of a building and NOTHING to do with its current condition, or even any aesthetic value. That's why Barrington St is full of crappy dingy buildings, and the facades look even crappier and dingier next to the glass additions sticking out of some of them. Meanwhile, an absolutely beautiful building in St. Josephs church gets knocked down because it was built in the late 50's, too "new" to have been on the HT's radar. I just think their priorities are out of whack, and they're almost impossible to take seriously on ANYTHING, even the very thing they are mandated to do.
Granted, with a little bit of planning wisdom back in the 60's (even just a smidge) a new downtown could have been built where Uniacke Square is now, complete with mega-malls and mega structures. Imagine Fenwick Tower (or something even taller) at the corner of Uniacke and Gottingen. The existing downtown of the day could have been preserved, views and all. It would be Old Halifax to the south around the Citadel, and New Halifax just to the North.
Oh my, I didn't intend to rant like that. My apologies for continuing the off-topic trend we have taken.
Back to topic. I think this shadow stuff is silly. Any shadow study could be done just by watching the Welsford for a sunny evening. Any new building would have to have the same length of shadow, would it not? The trees flanking Robie do cast a good shadow on their own, a building would have to be pretty tall to overtake them, and even then it would just cast onto left field of the diamond by the corner at Cogswell. No harm, no foul, let's build something there. I tend to agree that tall and sleek is probably the way to go.