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  #61  
Old Posted May 28, 2010, 10:19 AM
eastcoastal eastcoastal is offline
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Originally Posted by DigitalNinja View Post
They are desperate to look for excuses. It's getting to the point that people oppose stuff just for the hell of opposing something. It's the hip thing to do.
Yikes - hope you're not suggesting that the Heritage Trust is "hip." lol

I have felt that for a long time the Heritage Trust has diluted their message with arguments based on height and economic factors. They must feel those arguments are linked to broader heritage preservation issues, but to me it just makes them seem desperate. They destroy any credible points they have to make with all their other BS.
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  #62  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 7:41 PM
fenwick16 fenwick16 is offline
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Although I would like to see this proceed as soon as possible, I think that the developer should do a better job of maintaining the one remaining building. Since the Kelly building is already gone they could just focus on the one remaining building and keep the exterior and interior intact but they would have to rebuild it and bring it up to modern building codes. They would have to actually build over the heritage building (instead of just keeping the facade and incorporating it into the building structure). Then they could just restore the facade of the torn down Kelly building.

I don't really like the way they have new building storeys clearly visible in the front window of the heritage building. This remaining building could be used as ground floor retail. I think this would benefit the developer by adding some interesting detail to the building. However, HRM should 1) allow the developers more square footage in return or 2) provide subsidies to the builder in order to restore the heritage building that remains.

Sometimes people like to compare Quebec City and Halifax. However, based on what I have read, the Quebec provincial government has spent hundreds of millions towards heritage preservation in Quebec City. If heritage is to be maintained in Halifax then tax dollars will be required and commitments from the municipal, provincial and federal government to rent restored office space.

Last edited by fenwick16; May 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM.
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  #63  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 7:51 PM
worldlyhaligonian worldlyhaligonian is offline
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I agree... I think there needs to be more of a setback.. so it appears as though the storefronts are actual buildings as opposed to facads tacked onto the outside of a tower.

I think Founders Square did a good job with this... on the north side of the development.
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  #64  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 8:25 PM
fenwick16 fenwick16 is offline
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Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian View Post
I agree... I think there needs to be more of a setback.. so it appears as though the storefronts are actual buildings as opposed to facads tacked onto the outside of a tower.

I think Founders Square did a good job with this... on the north side of the development.
Or possibly just remove the two new storeys over the heritage building so that the setback is at the top the remaining heritage building and then keep the present floor levels in the heritage building (or at least have it so that people can walk into the heritage building from street level - the rendering shows a floor about 3 -4 four feet above ground level in front of the present day door).
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  #65  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 8:39 PM
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Sometimes people like to compare Quebec City and Halifax. However, based on what I have read, the Quebec provincial government has spent hundreds of millions towards heritage preservation in Quebec City. If heritage is to be maintained in Halifax then tax dollars will be required and commitments from the municipal, provincial and federal government to rent restored office space.
Both provincial and federal governments have invested far more into preserving and reconstructing Quebec City.

I don't think people realize how rare buildings like Macara-Barnstead are in Canada. Toronto has nothing like that from that era, and those buildings are important to providing context for some others like Province House. Province House is a building without an equal anywhere else in Canada - it is the oldest legislature that houses the oldest elected assembly (turned 250 in 2008).

At this point I do like the model of mixed new development, preservation, and facadism, but there has to be a lot of care.
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  #66  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 8:52 PM
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Both provincial and federal governments have invested far more into preserving and reconstructing Quebec City.

I don't think people realize how rare buildings like Macara-Barnstead are in Canada. Toronto has nothing like that from that era, and those buildings are important to providing context for some others like Province House. Province House is a building without an equal anywhere else in Canada - it is the oldest legislature that houses the oldest elected assembly (turned 250 in 2008).

At this point I do like the model of mixed new development, preservation, and facadism, but there has to be a lot of care.
Yes in this case I have to say that I now agree with Phil Pacey on this one. Buildings like this should be restored as much as possible instead of just being replaced with a facade. But the developers shouldn't be made out to be the bad guys. Subsidies should be made available to do it.

The Kelly building never should have been torn down. However, the three levels of government are partly to blame (in other words everyone, including residents of the city since they are the one paying the taxes to the government). The developers aren't the bad guys here - telling them to preserve heritage is like telling all HRM residents to spend money on heritage.

The Waterside redevelopment is actually preserving much more of the original buildings than this one is.

Last edited by fenwick16; May 29, 2010 at 9:09 PM.
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  #67  
Old Posted May 29, 2010, 9:10 PM
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As I've mentioned in another thread, heritage preservation is for the public good so the public should pay for it.

Unfortunately a lot of HRM policies are half measures designed to be as cheap as possible or are just horribly crafted and produce the wrong incentives. The cost of restoring and maintaining old heritage buildings and the opportunity cost of keeping them instead of replacing them with a highrise are huge. The possible benefits to the public of having a unique, irreplaceable heritage district are also huge - much larger than the direct benefits to the owner. Cases like this are ones where subsidy makes sense.

I think people also look at the situation incorrectly sometimes when it comes to investing in new infrastructure. Too often I hear "let the private sector do it!" but the reality is that there are many, many projects worth doing from a government cost-benefit perspective that a private company would never take on since they do not capture the same benefits but would have to absorb the same cost.
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  #68  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 1:35 PM
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Change at the banks
Building plans will attract global firms, architect says
By BRUCE ERSKINE Business Reporter
Wed, Oct 13 - 4:53 AM

DOWNTOWN Halifax’s banking landscape will be transformed in the next decade, says Bill Anwyll of Anwyll Fogo Architects Ltd.

"This will be a good thing for Halifax," he said in an interview on Tuesday. "These are buildings that international firms will want to move into."

The Halifax architecture firm is designing the $20-million expansion of the 18-storey TD Centre at Barrington and George streets for its owner, TDB Halifax Holdings Ltd.

The plan, which will double the building’s space to 208,000 square feet, includes the restoration of the 19th-century facade of the Granville Street side of the structure to realize $400,000 in density increase writedowns still being negotiated with HRM, Anwyll said.

TDB Halifax Holdings principal Gunter Thiel also controls, through other companies, the Royal Bank block bounded by Granville, Hollis, Duke and George streets and the Bank of Montreal building on George Street.

Anwyll said both of those bank towers will be demolished and replaced with new, energy-efficient office complexes.

The plan involves moving RBC tenants into the expanded TD Centre while the RBC block is rebuilt and moving Bank of Montreal building tenants into the new RBC complex until construction of the new Bank of Montreal tower is completed.

Anwyll estimated the TD Centre expansion will take two years and the RBC development, which would replace the existing 12-storey bank and office tower with a 22- to 24-storey structure, will take 2 1/2 years beyond that.

The whole development process, which would see the existing 17-storey Bank of Montreal building replaced by a "slightly taller" structure, would take 10 to 12 years, he said.

Anwyll said the new buildings will replace aging office towers that are well past their best-before dates.

"They will bring in large national and international companies," he said, estimating that the buildings will consume less than half the energy of the existing buildings.

Anwyll said the RBC plan involves saving the Merrill Lynch Building on the corner of George and Granville streets and maintaining other historic facades on the block.

He said the projects meet all municipal planning restrictions but he expects they will be criticized by opponents of downtown development.

"A lot of people don’t like change."

Phil Pacey, chairman of the HRM committee with Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia, said all three projects fail to comply with HRM by Design development provisions, including the preservation of historic components.

"Several historic buildings are reduced to facades," he said on Tuesday. "That would be most unfortunate."

Robert Richardson, president of Compass Commercial Realty, which will lease and manage the properties, said there is a demand for modern buildings in downtown Halifax.

"You need balance," he said, noting that many tenants don’t want to lease space in old buildings that can’t be readily adapted to different functions.


( berskine@herald.ca )
Other than the Phil Pacey rant this article at least shows the development has some potential to change the office landscape in Downtown Halifax.
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  #69  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 2:01 PM
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Anybody else gettting sick of Phil Pacey criticizing everyone who is trying to do something in downtown Halifax and yet they have a complete eyesore with that house they saved down on Hollis St that they have done absolutely nothing with at all.
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  #70  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 2:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Haliguy View Post
Anybody else gettting sick of Phil Pacey criticizing everyone who is trying to do something in downtown Halifax and yet they have a complete eyesore with that house they saved down on Hollis St that they have done absolutely nothing with at all.
Someone should come out in the media and point blank ask the heritage trust how savign that house is going.

Times tickin
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  #71  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 3:14 PM
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"Anwyll said the new buildings will replace aging office towers that are well past their best-before dates."

How old are these buildings?
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  #72  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 3:28 PM
DigitalNinja DigitalNinja is offline
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Between 50-30 years. RBC was built in 1960 (50 years), TD in 1974 (36 years) I couldn't find a date for BMO but I would say somewhere in between.
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  #73  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 4:27 PM
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Here are the small renderings from the article.



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  #74  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 4:31 PM
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Originally Posted by DigitalNinja View Post
Between 50-30 years. RBC was built in 1960 (50 years), TD in 1974 (36 years) I couldn't find a date for BMO but I would say somewhere in between.
Interesting that buildings that have been around for a couple of hundred years( and need a bit of a fix up) are being torn down to build something that has a best-before-date of fifty years. I'm just sayin'...
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  #75  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 4:33 PM
DigitalNinja DigitalNinja is offline
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You have to take the comment in a current day context.
By him saying a best before date, just means that it is cheaper and more economical to totally redesign these buildings, add onto etc, rather than to upgrade them in their current forms.
The same was done with those builds from many years ago, parts were added on, re cladded, etc. Nothing new here, the buildings will see be 50 years old, but it will be a major renovation
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  #76  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 4:49 PM
JET JET is offline
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You have to take the comment in a current day context.
By him saying a best before date, just means that it is cheaper and more economical to totally redesign these buildings, add onto etc, rather than to upgrade them in their current forms.
The same was done with those builds from many years ago, parts were added on, re cladded, etc. Nothing new here, the buildings will see be 50 years old, but it will be a major renovation
I understand waht you are saying about renos, but in the article: "Anwyll said both of those bank towers will be demolished and replaced with new, energy-efficient office complexes." That's what is amazing about a 50ish year old building. Cripes, that's my age.
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  #77  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 4:51 PM
beyeas beyeas is offline
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Interesting that buildings that have been around for a couple of hundred years( and need a bit of a fix up) are being torn down to build something that has a best-before-date of fifty years. I'm just sayin'...
To be honest I had a similar reaction at one point when I was reading about all this.

But I think there is a definite difference. 1st of all, we don't keep every 100 year old building, just (as you said) the interesting ones.
If you look at the Dominion Public Building (the old parts of which are 75 years old) it went through a major addition and upgrade about 40-50 years ago, and then went through significant refurb recently. It is a great example in my mind of a building that is worth continually fixing up even though it is a 20th century and therefore not "old" building.

However, there is nothing especially interesting about the RBC building, and I wouldn't be sad to see it go. It's just a building, and like many bland structures they eventually come down. I will admit that I do think that in many other cities with "normal" development pacings that this would instead retire to being low rent Class B space, but Halifax isn't normal, and given that people fight tooth and nail to keep sites from having tall buildings, it is likely easier here to just knock it down and build on the same site.

As much as I won't be sad to see the RBC building go, I am not quite so much in favour of the BMO building going. I actually like that one, and it actually has some reasonable quality building materials to it.
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  #78  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 5:20 PM
fenwick16 fenwick16 is offline
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As much as I won't be sad to see the RBC building go, I am not quite so much in favour of the BMO building going. I actually like that one, and it actually has some reasonable quality building materials to it.
I wouldn't mind seeing a building with a similar exterior to the current BMO - since people like it (why not make it different than the other two?)
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  #79  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 7:55 PM
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I wouldn't mind seeing a building with a similar exterior to the current BMO - since people like it (why not make it different than the other two?)
I agree, I like the current style of BMO. It looks like a bank tower. If it were to be rebuilt in a similar style with polished granite and a grand piazza it would be a better fit. The piazza would be a great people space with fountains and real public art.
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  #80  
Old Posted Oct 13, 2010, 11:44 PM
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For the record, the BMO tower was built (finished) in 1971.
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