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  #1  
Old Posted Dec 14, 2017, 5:16 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Halifax Armoury renovation

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-s...ions-1.4445342

I found it interesting that a large part of the job will be to repair damage that was caused by the Halifax Explosion:

Quote:
Job No. 1: Fix damage from Halifax Explosion

The first phase will rebuild the armoury's west wall, which faces the Halifax Common on North Park Street.

Officials believe it has slowly been tilting outward since the building was damaged — and later quickly repaired — in the Halifax Explosion.

Cables were bolted to the wall as part of the temporary repair but recently the lean has been increasing as the building ages.

"Remediation was done at the time to hold it back but the mortar is washing out: the stone is loose. So we are renovating that wall first," Howes said in an interview, speaking from Ottawa.
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  #2  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2017, 1:56 PM
IanWatson IanWatson is offline
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I am so torn on this one. On one hand, I think it's a beautiful building and I'm glad it's there. I am also happy to see federal money poured into our region.

On the other hand, I find the fact that the building has zero public use super frustrating (and with this money being spent, I doubt that'll change anytime soon). And I also find it super frustrating that someone can wave a magic wand and boom we're spending $130 million to repair one building, but we wring our hands over spending $50 million on commuter rail. Not that I don't think we should do both, but why is it so easy to spend $130 million on one building, while we have to spend decades studying and wringing our hands about how a commuter rail system (which would be transformative for our city) won't be self-sustaining?

It also drives me bananas that the feds will spend $130 million on this building, but won't spend a cent more to make buildings like the new junior mess on Barrington not look like the ugliest POS in the city.
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  #3  
Old Posted Dec 15, 2017, 3:41 PM
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Keith P. Keith P. is offline
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It also drives me bananas that the feds will spend $130 million on this building, but won't spend a cent more to make buildings like the new junior mess on Barrington not look like the ugliest POS in the city.

Well, it's historic and unique, so they can't let it fall down and can't just slap a coat of paint or some siding on it and call it a day. In for a penny, in for a pound, etc.

This is their asset and so the money is not largesse they can give away for a municipal project, which also changes the equation quite a bit.
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Old Posted Dec 15, 2017, 7:35 PM
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The time scale has an impact on the dollar value too. This building has been around for 120 years, and some of the repairs cover problems from 100 years ago. The $130M protects a landmark of national significance for a very long time.

When it comes to commuter rail I think the problem is mainly that the city and province aren't spending enough on transit. There is no dilemma between financing a project like this and financing commuter rail. HRM has a large tax base and a low debt, but is too timid with infrastructure development.
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Old Posted Dec 17, 2017, 3:11 AM
musicman musicman is offline
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The time scale has an impact on the dollar value too. This building has been around for 120 years, and some of the repairs cover problems from 100 years ago. The $130M protects a landmark of national significance for a very long time.

When it comes to commuter rail I think the problem is mainly that the city and province aren't spending enough on transit. There is no dilemma between financing a project like this and financing commuter rail. HRM has a large tax base and a low debt, but is too timid with infrastructure development.
Not to mention to be able to build a building of that size today that would be around 120 years from now would be well north of 130 million.
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Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 3:22 PM
beyeas beyeas is offline
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When it comes to commuter rail I think the problem is mainly that the city and province aren't spending enough on transit. There is no dilemma between financing a project like this and financing commuter rail. HRM has a large tax base and a low debt, but is too timid with infrastructure development.
Frankly we seem to have fallen into the trap where Nova Scotia is a society that won't take bold risks because it is afraid of failure. It is a huge source of frustration for me that failing in a bold initiative is treated in this province simply as "failure" rather than an opportunity to "learn and try again". Those jurisdictions that we always hear politicians etc saying that we aspire to be, fundamentally understand the need to celebrate those serial innovators who understand the role of failure in the process of change and innovation. Instead, and this forum is occasionally rife with it, anyone in NS who fails is derided with smarmy remarks and put downs that act only to dampen enthusiasm for strategic risk. Rather than putting people down and making derogatory comments about them, we should be celebrating people/governments/businesses who are willing to take calculated risks, perhaps fail, learn from mistakes, and try again. By not doing so we are stuck in an endless economic rut where we keep trying the same low-risk strategies again and again. It is no wonder that many of the Nova Scotians who have gone on to major success as innovators did so after leaving here and going to places that actually get it. To me, this is all part and parcel with the lack of desire to attempt bold initiatives in transportation infrastructure... what if it doesn't work out exactly as planned??!
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  #7  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 5:14 PM
OldDartmouthMark OldDartmouthMark is offline
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Originally Posted by beyeas View Post
Frankly we seem to have fallen into the trap where Nova Scotia is a society that won't take bold risks because it is afraid of failure. It is a huge source of frustration for me that failing in a bold initiative is treated in this province simply as "failure" rather than an opportunity to "learn and try again". Those jurisdictions that we always hear politicians etc saying that we aspire to be, fundamentally understand the need to celebrate those serial innovators who understand the role of failure in the process of change and innovation. Instead, and this forum is occasionally rife with it, anyone in NS who fails is derided with smarmy remarks and put downs that act only to dampen enthusiasm for strategic risk. Rather than putting people down and making derogatory comments about them, we should be celebrating people/governments/businesses who are willing to take calculated risks, perhaps fail, learn from mistakes, and try again. By not doing so we are stuck in an endless economic rut where we keep trying the same low-risk strategies again and again. It is no wonder that many of the Nova Scotians who have gone on to major success as innovators did so after leaving here and going to places that actually get it. To me, this is all part and parcel with the lack of desire to attempt bold initiatives in transportation infrastructure... what if it doesn't work out exactly as planned??!
I think this is a good point, but do any politicians/governments anywhere in Canada actually take bold risks?

It occurs to me that risk taking, or at least the idea of learning from failures, is quite common in some aspects of private industry, especially in research/development and IT, but you don't seem to see it much in anything related to government. This is likely because most things seem to happen in 4-year (election period) chunks. It seems that most politicians are afraid of failure as it could prevent them from being re-elected the next time around once the opposition frames it as the current government wasting taxpayers money on something that failed.

That said, I did hear that the feds are trying to insert some of that thinking into their IT fields to bring it more in line with private industry, to avoid situations where the systems are out of date by the time development is finished or are grossly inadequate from the start (think Phoenix payroll system)...
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  #8  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 8:16 PM
beyeas beyeas is offline
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I don’t disagree. My point however was intended to be more general, in spite of having mentioned politicians, because I meant it in terms of those who generate economic development or new innovations. Certainly politicians of all stripes think that they drive economic development but it is of course not actually true. My comment about taking risks really is about those entrepreneurs or innovators or what ever you want to call them within the private sector or academic sector to take risks leading to economic development for this province. I would argue that this province does a very poor job and actually celebrating those people from Nova Scotia who are the ones to truly take risks and sometimes failed. We only get somewhere in terms of truly changing the economy of this province when we understand that it is taking risks, occasionally failing, and learning from those failures but also celebrating them. Some of the worlds top innovators love most to talk about how they failed in the first X businesses that they started but in Doing so learned everything that they needed to create what eventually became their huge hit.
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  #9  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 9:20 PM
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Part of that lack of celebrating success of entrepreneurs is due to a virtually nonexistent business journalism sector here. The few we do have are not very good. Then you have a lot of businesses that seem to exist only to accept govt handouts, and those inevitably fail. This in turn feeds the infamous NS mindset that those who make money only did so because of their connections and political friends. Essentially if you are doing well and making money here, many people default to the position that you do not deserve it.

Government risk-taking is very limited because of the scathing criticism that will result if and when something fails. Between the media, the opposition parties and the Auditor General, failure is to be avoided by govt at all costs. The only level of govt that can avoid that is HRM because they have a very limited A-G now. That lets their spending continue unchecked on very foolish investments like bike flyover lanes while starving funding from worthwhile things such as a transit system that is not run like it is still 1962.
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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 26, 2018, 10:03 PM
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Jonovision Jonovision is offline
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Some very robust scaffolding is going up on the front facade.

20180224_144022 by Jonovision23, on Flickr
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