Downtown tower gets a no
Heritage committee rejects proposal
By AMY PUGSLEY FRASER City Hall Reporter
Fri. Jul 4 - 4:32 AM
A new proposal from the developer of Halifax’s award-winning Founders Square complex was rejected Thursday at city hall’s heritage advisory committee meeting.
A 4-4 vote from the advisory body to regional council resulted in a lost recommendation for Ben McCrea’s proposed Waterside Centre development.
The next step for the project is consideration by the downtown planning advisory committee, which meets next week.
The Waterside Centre proposal, by architect Andy Lynch, would connect existing buildings where Duke Street meets Hollis and Upper Water streets, save their historic facades and put a six-storey glass office tower above them.
Restaurants such as O’Carroll’s and Subway could go back into their current locations but with upgraded walls, wiring and footings. O’Carroll’s is sitting on 80-year-old pilings that are not going to last much longer, the heritage advisory committee heard last week.
Mr. McCrea attended Thursday’s meeting at city hall and took notes throughout. Several committee members lauded him for his work on Founders Square, a mid-1980s development that used a similar concept of uniting heritage buildings and erecting a 15-storey stepped-back tower above them.
But a few committee members said they were unable to get past the redesign of the buildings’ interiors in the Waterside Centre proposal.
"The buildings are heritage for a reason," Lisa Miller said. "It’s like Disney World: It looks great on the outside, but it’s all different on the inside."
Others were hung up on the style of windows chosen for a building slated to replace the wooden structure that now houses Sweet Basil restaurant. In fact, so much of the debate centred on the design and size of windows that one member tried to refocus the group.
"There is an elephant in the room here, and that is the giant glass tower on top," Michael Cross said. "It’s going to overwhelm these heritage buildings, and maybe that’s fine but I don’t think it’s what the policy states."
Coun. Bob Harvey (Lower Sackville) disagreed. He said he walked down to Hollis Street recently to look at Founders Square and was surprised to see the high office tower above the heritage streetscape.
"It didn’t destroy my view of the street level where I normally look," he said.
City planning staff have approved the Waterside Centre development and say the new office tower wouldn’t change the heritage structures below.
"The heritage values are the facades themselves," planner Luc Ouellet told the committee, noting that the heritage aspect would remain as long as the street-level view was maintained.
A committee member disagreed.
"Is heritage value an esthetic value or something more holistic in nature?" Cathy Thibault asked. "In my view, it’s more than the street-level experience."
The committee first voted 6-4 to reject the proposal, then voted 4-4 after two members left and window alterations were suggested.
After the meeting, Mr. McCrea shrugged at the result.
"We’re doing the best we can to avoid having boarded-up buildings or a parking lot," he said outside city hall.
"We have a problem down there . . . with four buildings there that are structurally and financially obsolescent. They’re completely unusable in their present form and I’m faced with the challenge of trying to find some way of dealing with it, to modernize it, to make it part of an urban core and have it economically sustainable over time."
Mr. McCrea said his company has been working on the Waterfront Centre proposal for two years.
"And that proposal is about the best that we’ve been able to do, given that there’s roughly $1.5 million of costs to do the restoration.
"We’re just trying to bring our heritage past into a modern, urban core with sustainable economic development."
(
apugsley@herald.ca)
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