Development Rumours

[phrenic]

I wasn't sure where to put this since there are few concrete plans yet, but move it if you feel necessary...

Emera has expressed interest in construction of a new and "green" office development. By the sounds of it, this will almost certainly be a LEED building.

http://www.emera.com/documents/Corpo...nt%20RFEIQ.pdf

PROJECT OBJECTIVE
Emera Incorporated and its affiliates, including Nova Scotia Power Inc. (collectively “Emera”) current
corporate office lease expires in March 2011. Emera plans to secure and implement a new arrangement
for corporate office facilities located within the Halifax Regional Municipality. Emera seeks to implement a
new arrangement for corporate office facilities which is based on sustainable design principles, and which
responds to the climate change issues and minimizes life cycle costs. The office facilities will be
designed, constructed and operated in such a way as to achieve a low carbon foot print and inspire
environmental stewardship. This document is the first step in the plan/process to secure a new corporate
office facilities arrangement.
This Request for Expressions of Interest & Qualifications (RFEIQ) seeks to identify and pre-qualify
potential facilities partner Candidates that have sufficient capacity (financial, expertise including
engineering, design and construction and related experience) to propose a concept that they consider to
be the best solution for Emera’s needs as described in this RFEIQ.
The facilities partner may be required to undertake any or all stages of the new facilities arrangements
including but not limited to; design, engineering, procurement, construction, financing and potentially
owning the facilities.
Successful Candidates will be selected for a subsequent more detailed and rigorous RFP process.

The RFB will be issued on Oct, 29.

[Mike K.]

Phrenic,

I'll use this post to start a "development rumour" thread in the Halifax & Dartmouth sub-forum.

Also, someone may want to start a "Development News" thread for news that does not fit into already created threads and for small general updates. I'll sticky it as well.

[phrenic]

Cool, thanks!

[beyeas]

Does anyone know what the status of the Queen's Landing project is? They still have a website, but from what I can tell it has not been updated since 2005. Is this project dead?

[Haliguy]

I've been wondering that myself as well.

[someone123]

I'd consider it "on hold".

Another rumoured project is the triangle lands office tower.

[citiguy]

I also heard that too, and that it if it is built it will be pretty much leased up by one tenant.

[citiguy]

I came across the proposal of Sheppards Island and I notice in that they had included a Hotel, another residential building, public board walk, commercial building and another building that I was not sure of. Does anyone know if this is still the plan for the entire site?

[someone123]

I remember seeing a sign up a long time ago in Burnside at what I guess is the Sheppard's Island site. It had a bunch of small buildings. I assumed that proposal was dropped in favour of the condo development, but there is a lot of extra land so maybe future phases are planned.

I can think of two more rumoured projects not yet mentioned:

1) Founder's Square type development for part of the block bounded by Hollis/Duke/Lower Water Street. The Armour Group have applied for a demolition permit for the small green wooden building. Presumably they also want to fill in the gap next to the Jerusalem Warehouse/Morse's Teas.

2) Development at the corner of Spring Garden Road and Queen Street (BMO building, maybe the rest of the block?).

[hfx_chris]

That reminds me, they're finished tearing down the two remaining buildings on the site of Founders Corner in Dartmouth, now they're just clearing away the debris.

[skyscraper_1]

here is a nice development for the Hydrostone area.

[terrynorthend]

Originally Posted by someone123

1) Founder's Square type development for part of the block bounded by Hollis/Duke/Lower Water Street. The Armour Group have applied for a demolition permit for the small green wooden building. Presumably they also want to fill in the gap next to the Jerusalem Warehouse/Morse's Teas.

Any idea/news about this? How big is this proposed? That lot seems like a small footprint for any significantly sized development.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by someone123

I remember seeing a sign up a long time ago in Burnside at what I guess is the Sheppard's Island site. It had a bunch of small buildings. I assumed that proposal was dropped in favour of the condo development, but there is a lot of extra land so maybe future phases are planned.

I can think of two more rumoured projects not yet mentioned:

1) Founder's Square type development for part of the block bounded by Hollis/Duke/Lower Water Street. The Armour Group have applied for a demolition permit for the small green wooden building. Presumably they also want to fill in the gap next to the Jerusalem Warehouse/Morse's Teas.

I heard about this a few months ago...I think it would be a great development of the area.

[Haliguy]

Originally Posted by skyscraper_1

here is a nice development for the Hydrostone area.

I like this one it been advertised in the papers for the past while. Does anyone know when it is suppose to start construction?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by terrynorthend

Any idea/news about this? How big is this proposed? That lot seems like a small footprint for any significantly sized development.

I don't really know how big it is supposed to be, but I think the plan would be to include some nearby buildings, possibly the rest of the block, and build on top of them in the same way that Founder's Square was built. In other words, some heritage buildings might be reduced to facades. I would expect that some people will go ballistic over that, and I don't know if it's a good idea or not. It really depends on the quality of the proposal.

There are already some issues because, like I said, the developers have applied for a demolition permit to tear down a three storey wooden building. In my opinion, this building is not up to par with other heritage buildings in the area and shouldn't necessarily be preserved, particularly if it makes development of a larger part of that block uneconomical. This is one of those cases where it doesn't make sense to keep something around just because it is old.

There are other examples of buildings like that, such as the Midtown or KOD. I think those are nearly 150 years old but they were very basic structures when first built and have been stripped of whatever special features they had originally.

[Jonovision]

Hydrostone Place is already under construction. I havn't been by the site in a while, but I would guess they are probably working on the 4thish floor.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Seems like there is definitely a boom going on in Halifax, although we'll really see how much if it will be built/approved in the next year.


Is the W-Suites complete, the webcam must be taken down for the site because it reads October 12th...

Also, what about St. James Place, was there are buyer and are workers back on the site?

[phrenic]

Does anybody know what is going on with the Amalthea site on the corner of Cogswell St. and Rannie Dr? (The triangle lot up from the Centennial Pool)

First they had a sign with the company name, the slogan "Building things that matter", and the rendering of the project. The rendering eventually dissapeared and then so did the slogan, and now its just the Amalthea sign.

I have a feeling this was cancelled or put on hold and I just didn't hear about it.

[terrynorthend]

Originally Posted by phrenic

Does anybody know what is going on with the Amalthea site on the corner of Cogswell St. and Rannie Dr? (The triangle lot up from the Centennial Pool)...

...I have a feeling this was cancelled or put on hold and I just didn't hear about it.

You may be right. The development was under fire from the start; It had pressure from the neighbors along Cogswell and side streets, fearing it would block their view of the Citadel. This is an as-of-right development lot that would allow up to about 12 stories, however the site is zoned for institutional use only. The developer applied to have it rezoned but was denied. Without rezoning it can only be used as a medical/professional centre or school facility or whatever else can fall under institutional zoning.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Thats a shame, the flatiron-esque rendering was once posted somewhere was beautiful. This site really needs to be redeveloped, its so visible and so ugly.

There are some nice restored houses there on cogswell, those white rooming houses at the corner of north park and cogswell are another story. The approval process has to be streamlined, we have too many empty lots and shitty properties across the peninsula. At least armoury square will fill in around the commons a bit.