Posted May 28, 2009, 7:30 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: B3K Halifax, NS
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Greenvale site active again
After years of waiting, construction has started at the old school site
Halifax News Net
By Joanie Veitch – The Weekly News
After years of waiting and wondering if anything other than further decay and deterioration was going to happen to the old Greenvale School building, a construction crew with Dexel Developments Ltd. is working at the site.
“The project is moving forward. We’ve got all the development permits in place and the work crew is in there now getting it construction ready,” said Erin Sparrow, a spokesperson with Dexel Developments.
The project, called the Lofts at Greenvale, will cost as much as $6 million to create 36 rental units, 13 in the existing structure and 23 in an addition planned for the rear of the building.
The project was first announced five years ago when developer Louis Lawen reached an agreement in principle with HRM to develop the site. Dexel didn’t, however, actually get ownership of the property until late 2007 due to problems that had to be worked out with the city in regards to an old sewer line at the exterior of the property.
Lawen took the project before a council committee in 2005 and again in 2006 in regards to a protective exterior cladding system he proposed for the building. In 2007 Lawen was back at the Harbour East Community Council with proposed amendments to a portion of the development proposal.
While the delays have meant further deterioration to the 94-year-old building, Lawen said the end result is that “the shape and form of the building will remain as it is.”
The building will be clad with an Exterior Insulation and Finish System (EIFS), a rigid foam insulation and cladding material that gives a stucco-like finish (such as the MEC building in Halifax).
Built in 1915 to replace the original school that had been destroyed by fire in 1914, the red brick Greenvale School building is a well-known and much-loved landmark in downtown Dartmouth. Although downtown residents have long hoped to see it saved and used for some public purpose, it has stood empty since the Dartmouth school board’s music department moved out in 1987.
On the project website — theloftsatgreen vale.com — Dexel Developments bills itself as a landmark restoration expert “focused primarily on residential apartments and the regeneration of existing heritage properties … with a knack for maintaining historical character.”
Site History:
* Opened in 1915, one of four buildings in the city designed by architect Andrew Cobb.
* Following the explosion in the Halifax Harbour on Dec. 6, 1917, Greenvale was used as a sanctuary and infirmary for the injured and homeless.
* From 1934-59, Greenvale was Dartmouth’s only high school. It reverted to an elementary school when Dartmouth High School opened.
* Finally closed its doors in 1987. Proposed as home for new Dartmouth library in the early 1990s, but the idea was rejected in favour of the waterfront site.
*Dexel Developments reached an agreement in principle with HRM in 2004 to buy the building, pending approval of the plans.
jveitch@ns.sympatico.ca
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