[Halifax] Imagine Bloomfield | ? | ? | Vision

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

It seems like either the city or province fumble just about every one of these redevelopments. The old library building is still sitting empty, many years later. None of the school redevelopments (4 or more on the peninsula?) seem to have happened yet. Meanwhile, there's tons of privately led construction all over the city. Develop NS is very slow too.

It has gotten to the point where most of these underused sites on the peninsula involve the government in some way. For each big empty lot there is some story about why it couldn't be developed for 10-20+ years.

Not to mention that the longer the delay, the more degradation happens on existing buildings that were intended to be reused. Renovation/repair costs increase, or become so large that it's no longer practical to keep the building.

I suspect that this has already happened on the Bloomfield site, and is the likely scenario with the old library site as well.

[Keith P.]

Well, it appears that HRM has indeed sold the Bloomfield property, although don't tell our current Klueless Kouncillor Lindell Smith, whose perpetual case of I-don't-know disease seems to be getting worse:

https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/ne...closed-527753/

Lindell Smith, regional councillor for the Halifax Peninsula North district that encompasses the Bloomfield and Agricola streets corner, said concerns are unfounded.

“We as council haven’t accepted an offer yet,” Smith said. “I’m not sure where he is getting that information from.”

Smith allowed that he "could be wrong," and that information on how the entire process plays out could best be provided by municipal real estate staff.

On Friday evening, a municipal communications staffer provided the definitive answer from the municipality's corporate real estate arm, confirming that the property has indeed been sold and that regional council has already given the sale its blessing.

"Regional council declared the Bloomfield Centre property surplus to municipal requirements and authorized its disposal," the staff response reads.

"In early to mid-2020, a public sales program, including significant site branding and social media communications, was launched through the municipality’s broker, Cushman Wakefield, for the sale of the property.

"Initial offers or bids were received on July 6, 2020. In late July 2020, municipal staff accepted a conditional offer for the sale of the property, subject to council approval. In September 2020, council approved its acceptance of the offer and contract agreements followed, subject to normal due diligence. The conveyance of title or the closing of the transaction is currently in progress. The purchaser must still seek municipal development approval via Centre Plan and satisfy the terms of the purchase and sale agreement that survive closing."

[kph06]

There were rumours a couple months ago that the Halef family were the successful bidder. This with St. Pat’s puts a lot on their plate.

[Haliburger]

Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark

Not to mention that the longer the delay, the more degradation happens on existing buildings that were intended to be reused.

The buildings are literally falling apart. There are bricks coming down and windows have been smashed, etc.

[The Crow Whisperer]

Finally the city sold it to a developer to build something nice and generate tax revenue instead of turning it into another uniacke square which is what Imagine Bloomfield wanted.

Imagine Bloomfield are self-apppointed "owner" of Bloomfield, "it's our land, shouldn't we have a say in it?" David Fright asked on Rick Howe. No, Fright you don't own the land, The CITY owns the land and HRM council is the legal rep of the city who get to decide what happens to it.

[The Crow Whisperer]

Imagine Bloomfield: "We are particularly concerned that the heritage buildings on site are in a continued state of decline."

HAHAHA "Muh heritage." What heritage buildings? The ugly atrocious nasty fielding building is not worth preserving, it's an eyesore with no redeeming cultural or historical value, it looks like a spooky early 20th century asylum like a "Home for Evil Minded Children."

Flatten everything and build like what there is across from the Lion's Head: apartments, condos and airb2b with Stores streetside.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Coming up on two years since the last comment (above) and it appears that no attempt has been made to stop or slow down the degradation of the old Bloomfield school. Little doubt at this point that Banc has no intent on keeping the old structure. Also, folks at the city, including the local councillor, can see the state of this site as clearly as any of us can and therefore must be able to draw the same conclusion. I suggest that the Imagine Bloomfield fisaco would make a decent documentary considering the many years and all the hard work that was done by the group of volunteers and exposing the ruse by the city who knew full well that the group was wasting its time. As with the current public meetings for developments, there is a foregone conclusion and the meeting is simply to serve as a outlet for the NIMBYs and a meet and greet opportunity for the councillors.


20221128_085808 by AJ Forsythe, on Flickr

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

Coming up on two years since the last comment (above) and it appears that no attempt has been made to stop or slow down the degradation of the old Bloomfield school. Little doubt at this point that Banc has no intent on keeping the old structure. Also, folks at the city, including the local councillor, can see the state of this site as clearly as any of us can and therefore must be able to draw the same conclusion. I suggest that the Imagine Bloomfield fisaco would make a decent documentary considering the many years and all the hard work that was done by the group of volunteers and exposing the ruse by the city who knew full well that the group was wasting its time. As with the current public meetings for developments, there is a foregone conclusion and the meeting is simply to serve as a outlet for the NIMBYs and a meet and greet opportunity for the councillors.

It's pretty ridiculous. The building has been full of pigeons and likely other animals for a few years, all the windows are broken letting in the elements. The shell of the building is likely still salvageable, but what are the odds that will happen? Very, very low I would say. The two historic schools here should have been heritage-designated years ago and protected from this kind of degradation, at the very least.

Add that to the loss of the SJAM school nearby, and it's apparent how very, very bad we are at salvaging these historic schools--much worse than you typically see elsewhere.

Not to mention the continued vacancy of an entire city block. This whole thing is really embarrassing.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Not to mention the continued vacancy of an entire city block. This whole thing is really embarrassing.

I think it is a cultural or psychological quirk in the city and region that, these days, is increasingly out of step with norms in the developed world or the reality of the local economy and the kind of wealth that is being generated by real estate.

This situation where there are basically zero standards for maintenance or attractiveness of some sites reminds me a lot of booming third world countries where you see glitzy new construction next to derelict sites. It is not that everything is ugly but it is left to private owners and chance. It is strange because Halifax isn't poor and has never really been all that poor, but there is an attitude that the city can't afford things and there can be no imposition on developers or the weak economy will die (e.g. inappropriate/impossible to make demands of a Chinese shell company that bought a historic building on the city's main street a couple years ago). This ain't how it works in the majority of successful developed cities in the world. Halifax's "severe arbitrary overlapping height limits in many locations but we don't care how buildings look" norm is quirky and unusual and probably makes the city look much, much worse than it could with some modest changes.

I wonder how much of it is just that some or most councillors hold these views, a lot of it is semi accidental historical path-dependent stuff (e.g. 80's NIMBYs and heritage advocates getting together to write some bylaws that had unintended consequences and never got updated), and it's not critical enough of an issue for their supporting voters to shift the politics. I don't get the sense that this regime is what the population wants on average, although I think some people have a kind of learned helplessness in this area (new buildings are just ugly, if they're ugly we must be poor and poor people can't have nice things, and so on).

Halifax also has roughly zero "self" sense of gravitas as well as a capital or regional centre. This ties in with the comment about painted lobsters and lighthouses. Sure, it's not Paris, but actually areas like around Province House are maybe in the top 0.01% of most nationally significant public spaces.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by someone123

This situation where there are basically zero standards for maintenance or attractiveness of some sites reminds me a lot of booming third world countries where you see glitzy new construction next to derelict sites.

In fairness, a lot of Toronto looks like that too, but yes, I think this is a cultural thing. I also think we're unlearning it to a degree--there's more investment in heritage preservation among new developments, public art is a lot less kitschy these days, etc. The city is beginning to look and feel more sophisticated in its placemaking. Clearly we're not all the way there yet, though.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by someone123

This situation where there are basically zero standards for maintenance or attractiveness of some sites reminds me a lot of booming third world countries where you see glitzy new construction next to derelict sites. It is not that everything is ugly but it is left to private owners and chance. It is strange because Halifax isn't poor and has never really been all that poor, but there is an attitude that the city can't afford things and there can be no imposition on developers or the weak economy will die (e.g. inappropriate/impossible to make demands of a Chinese shell company that bought a historic building on the city's main street a couple years ago). This ain't how it works in the majority of successful developed cities in the world. Halifax's "severe arbitrary overlapping height limits in many locations but we don't care how buildings look" norm is quirky and unusual and probably makes the city look much, much worse than it could with some modest changes.

I wonder how much of it is just that some or most councillors hold these views, a lot of it is semi accidental historical path-dependent stuff (e.g. 80's NIMBYs and heritage advocates getting together to write some bylaws that had unintended consequences and never got updated), and it's not critical enough of an issue for their supporting voters to shift the politics.

Don't overlook the fact that HRM was the owner of this site up until a couple of years ago and most of the degradation occurred on their watch. Add to that it is in the district of one of the worst members of Council who almost never responds to constituents on any issue and has essentially collected a salary for many years doing as little as possible. It is odd that a district that could benefit so much from strategic spending by HRM gets next to nothing due to him being so passive.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Don't overlook the fact that HRM was the owner of this site up until a couple of years ago and most of the degradation occurred on their watch. Add to that it is in the district of one of the worst members of Council who almost never responds to constituents on any issue and has essentially collected a salary for many years doing as little as possible. It is odd that a district that could benefit so much from strategic spending by HRM gets next to nothing due to him being so passive.

I get the impression that HRM has never looked at schools as anything more than an asset to be used for its purpose until it's no longer viable to keep in service. On the surface that seems reasonable except that once this determination is made, it appears that there is no plan in place to preserve their assets, and they just let them go.

In the case of the oldest Bloomfield School, it was built specifically as a result of the Halifax Explosion, which is arguably the most prominent historic event of 'modern' times in Halifax (though less-so as people who have any ties to the event die off...). Regardless, it is tied to Halifax's history and should have had some sort of functional heritage status, but now it will surely just end up in the landfill... someday.

The 1929 school building also has interesting architectural elements that could blend nicely into a new development, IMHO.

Pics and excerpt below are from a 2014 blog post, so you can see that the building was starting to deteriorate badly even then, when owned by HRM.

Spent some time examining the oldest school building in the complex. The more you look the more you see. Like the Hydrostone District this building is an example of an out of town architect brought in after the Explosion to do a design. That’s why it looks different from the other red brick schools built about the same time. The date stone refers to the Explosion as the “Great Disaster.” People who lived through the aftermath may have felt like the explosion was just the first chapter of a never ending disaster.

https://halifaxbloggers.ca/noticedin...the-north-end/

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

Don't overlook the fact that HRM was the owner of this site up until a couple of years ago and most of the degradation occurred on their watch. Add to that it is in the district of one of the worst members of Council who almost never responds to constituents on any issue and has essentially collected a salary for many years doing as little as possible. It is odd that a district that could benefit so much from strategic spending by HRM gets next to nothing due to him being so passive.

I did a bit of volunteering in that complex a long time ago when it was home to some nonprofits. There are probably lots of community groups or artists that could have used that space. There are also a lot of people who attended that school; it feels weird to me how these buildings are treated as completely disposable when usually they're a part of a community's memory and in the past there were often multi-generational connections.

At the end of the day it does seem like it's mostly the city's fault, although since these councillors are are elected we could blame the voters as well. Aside from my complaint that the municipality and province don't seem mobilized to keep important public areas in good shape, there also seems to be a lack of creativity or flexibility and attention to maintenance. Maybe too much bureaucracy as well.

I find that HRM heritage preservation is bureaucratic and they have created a points system and process that seems to pick out some random old/quaint buildings while broadly failing to identify and protect the actual character of the city. Nobody would say that all of Bloomfield should be preserved (e.g. the 70's red brick part) but the 1919 school building is pretty unusual in town. Somebody probably filled in the checklist a while ago and it didn't get enough points because it wasn't old enough or didn't have some sea captain living in it in 1810.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Originally Posted by someone123

I did a bit of volunteering in that complex a long time ago when it was home to some nonprofits. There are probably lots of community groups or artists that could have used that space. There are also a lot of people who attended that school; it feels weird to me how these buildings are treated as completely disposable when usually they're a part of a community's memory and in the past there were often multi-generational connections.

At the end of the day it does seem like it's mostly the city's fault, although since these councillors are are elected we could blame the voters as well. Aside from my complaint that the municipality and province don't seem mobilized to keep important public areas in good shape, there also seems to be a lack of creativity or flexibility and attention to maintenance. Maybe too much bureaucracy as well.

I find that HRM heritage preservation is bureaucratic and they have created a points system and process that seems to pick out some random old/quaint buildings while broadly failing to identify and protect the actual character of the city. Nobody would say that all of Bloomfield should be preserved (e.g. the 70's red brick part) but the 1919 school building is pretty unusual in town. Somebody probably filled in the checklist a while ago and it didn't get enough points because it wasn't old enough or didn't have some sea captain living in it in 1810.

Those are fairly astute observations, and I mostly agree.

I think it's a little sketchy to place voters on the blame list, unless there was clearly a candidate that promised to do the above, but was not voted into office for other reasons (or no reasons other than name-familiarity, etc.). I don't know if that's the case, though. However, I suspect that if you asked residents in that neighbourhood, or city-wide for that matter, most (perhaps all, in this case) would prefer a better outcome than what we've seen so far.

[Keith P.]

More news on the star-crossed project, none of it good:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...erty-1.6840738

Halifax councillors are calling on a developer to address safety concerns at the site of a former north-end school while it continues to sit vacant.

Alex Halef of BANC Investments Ltd. has owned the old Bloomfield school site on Agricola Street since January 2021.

He told CBC at the time "we'll have a design at some point this year without question."

But two years later, Halef told the city's appeals committee on Thursday that he has "no timeline" for demolishing the old buildings.

"Unfortunately there's no construction financing in place right now. You know, it's a $2-million cost just to demolish and there's no plans completed yet," Halef said.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

More news on the star-crossed project, none of it good:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...erty-1.6840738

Halifax councillors are calling on a developer to address safety concerns at the site of a former north-end school while it continues to sit vacant.

Alex Halef of BANC Investments Ltd. has owned the old Bloomfield school site on Agricola Street since January 2021.

He told CBC at the time "we'll have a design at some point this year without question."

But two years later, Halef told the city's appeals committee on Thursday that he has "no timeline" for demolishing the old buildings.

"Unfortunately there's no construction financing in place right now. You know, it's a $2-million cost just to demolish and there's no plans completed yet," Halef said.

I just ran by there. They have placed concrete blocks on the outside to help support the exterior walls. Its quite an eyesore. Hopefully, something will happen there soon.

[Empire]

"But two years later, Halef told the city's appeals committee on Thursday that he has "no timeline" for demolishing the old buildings.

"Unfortunately there's no construction financing in place right now. You know, it's a $2-million cost just to demolish and there's no plans completed yet," Halef said."

What ever eventually happens with this site I hope the original Bloomfield School building is incorporated into the development. Developers of the Elmwood Hotel and The Waverley Inn are seeing the value of restoring landmark buildings as part of new projects.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

I imagine Halef is pissed-off that he can't have as big an erectlon as Chadrawe who is just down the street. Maybe giving him more height might make the site suddendly more affordable?

[Summerville]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

I imagine Halef is pissed-off that he can't have as big an erectlon as Chadrawe who is just down the street. Maybe giving him more height might make the site suddendly more affordable?

I wonder if the reporter tried to shame him with title stating that he couldn’t afford to demolish the building. For the landlord, that could be a bit of a dig considering that he probably has more than enough $.