[someone123]

I wish they had started by building the other new infill structures and adding in street-level improvements. The old Fenwick was not the most beautiful building but I don't think it was that bad. Did it urgently need these renovations?

I think the same developer also bought the church that used to be by Brunswick and Cogswell, demolished that, then moved on to the Fenwick development. So the North End has been left with an empty lot for maybe a decade or more now.

HRM needs to find ways to increase the costs to developers of leaving ugly sites like these. It shouldn't be financially attractive to use empty lots as land banks for decades, but that is how it works today because empty lots pay comparatively low taxes, parking generates some revenue, and land prices have been going up. United Gulf has made money just by hanging onto the TexPark site that HRM stupidly transferred to them around 15 years ago.