[Halifax] City Centre Atlantic | 25 m | 5 fl | Completed

[coolmillion]

The new building looks fantastic but it's a shame that it contrasts so drastically with the older structure it was built on. By itself the old City Center looked ok, but this new building makes it look old, cheap and dowdy. Hopefully they'll reclad it eventually.

I think that the Roots store looks great. In lots of cities there are nice store fronts in otherwise unremarkable buildings. From street level you can't see the deficiencies. I agree that the rest of the block needs some work, especially the house that's been empty for a million years. Hopefully H&M will move into the HMV space and be an anchor for the block.

Yes, it's cold. -15 yesterday but +8 tomorrow... typical Halifax winter...

[isaidso]

Well City Centre was rather pedestrian and forgettable right from the beginning. The Roots store does look great.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

The Roots building could be reworked to be more european... they could facad the of shingle part in brick and open up the inside space.

European? I remember when that used to have a negative connotation. I have no idea what you mean by 'European', but we should trumpet our north American aesthetics. It's what makes north America so appealing to so many people. If I wanted Europe, I'd move back to Europe.

Re-doing everything to look like Europe is a giant step backwards and a rejection of ourselves.

[someone123]

I agree that CCA was pretty dowdy looking even before the addition. It is functional though. There aren't a lot of smaller Canadian cities that have developments like that, with an urban format grocery store, residential above, and underground parking.

Spring Garden in general is a pretty mixed, somewhat unattractive district that nevertheless works really well. A lot of Toronto is like that too. Barrington has better looking buildings but it is not as vibrant.

[cormiermax]

Originally Posted by isaidso

European? I remember when that used to have a negative connotation. I have no idea what you mean by 'European', but we should trumpet our north American aesthetics. It's what makes north America so appealing to so many people. If I wanted Europe, I'd move to Europe.

Re-doing everything to look like Europe seems like a giant step backwards and a rejection of ourselves.

Vinyl siding and red brick then? First of all, what in the world is the North American Aesthetic? As far as I'm aware, North America has many different aesthetics and the only thing thats binding across the continent is suburban architecture IE faux heritage and vinyl, something I'm certainly not proud of. Its the same in Europe, although they sure as hell have a lot more to be proud of then we do, mostly because they have been around for thousands of years, unlike here where half the continent only really grew at the turn of the last century.

People look to Europe as an example of good city planning and aesthetic for a reason, compare our city centres and theirs and it becomes pretty clear whos superior in those fields.

[isaidso]

It's taken an awful long time, but Spring Garden (and Halifax) seem finally to be moving in the right direction after decades of flat lining. These are good times all around and the core is going to be one of the best in Canada within a decade or 2. I can feel it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by isaidso

It's taken an awful long time, but Spring Garden (and Halifax) seem finally to be moving in the right direction after decades of flat lining. These are good times all around and the core is going to be one of the best in Canada within a decade or 2. I can feel it.

There was definitely a long, frustrating period that was all talk and no action (the library and Sister sites were talked about for DECADES), and a lot of decision-makers in HRM just didn't "get" the urban core at all.

I'm almost jealous that I missed the good times and lived there when it was not progressing as quickly, but it is fun to visit every year or two and see noticeable changes. The changes now almost remind me of Toronto or Vancouver; every time I go back there are a lot of improvements. Over time they will add up. Halifax has the potential to attract a lot of people from other places and grow into a very interesting town.

One big outstanding problem however is that there has to be better transportation planning in Halifax. Council keeps backing down from road building projects and transit development is about 1/10 of what it would need to be in order to make up the difference. The city needs something like an LRT system (or just streetcar with some dedicated ROWs) to serve as a backbone for transit and bring up the percentage of urban infill.

[isaidso]

Likewise, I lived there from 1980 to 2000. Not much of anything happened and the city seemed stuck in perpetual inaction. I was astonished at the changes between 2000 and 2010 when I returned with fresh eyes.

Halifax is a gem of a city that never reached its potential. I can see the city coming into its own now. Transit is absolutely terrible though. Although viewed as outlandish, I've always seen Halifax a perfect candidate for an underground LRT loop running through Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and back to Halifax. If that were ever realized, bus routes could simply act as feeder routes perpendicular to that line.

It's a pipe dream at this point, but a time will come when population densities will bring more people around to the wisdom of such a line.

Originally Posted by cormiermax

Vinyl siding and red brick then? First of all, what in the world is the North American Aesthetic? As far as I'm aware, North America has many different aesthetics and the only thing thats binding across the continent is suburban architecture IE faux heritage and vinyl, something I'm certainly not proud of. Its the same in Europe, although they sure as hell have a lot more to be proud of then we do, mostly because they have been around for thousands of years, unlike here where half the continent only really grew at the turn of the last century.

People look to Europe as an example of good city planning and aesthetic for a reason, compare our city centres and theirs and it becomes pretty clear whos superior in those fields.

North America (like you said) has many architectures that are indigenous. Does a north American aesthetic really need explaining? Being from London, the last thing I want is for north America to become a Euro clone. Frankly, I find the self loathing quite puzzling.

Europe does some things right and some things terribly. The grass is NOT always greener on the other side, even though glossy tourism brochures sure do a good marketing job. Travel often opens ones eyes to things you formerly took for granted. Leaving Halifax for 10 years then returning certainly put Halifax in a more flattering light than I could ever have imagined.

North America has made many mistakes with its built form, but there's so many things it got right. Europe is nice to visit, but I'll take a north American city over a European one in a heart beat.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Halifax is a gem of a city that never reached its potential. I can see the city coming into its own now. Transit is absolutely terrible though. Although viewed as outlandish, I've always seen Halifax a perfect candidate for an underground LRT loop running through Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford, and back to Halifax. If that were ever realized, bus routes could simply act as feeder routes perpendicular to that line.

It's a pipe dream at this point, but a time will come when population densities will bring more people around to the wisdom of such a line.

North America (like you said) has many architectures that are indigenous. Does a north American aesthetic really need explaining? Being from London, the last thing I want is for north America to become a Euro clone. Frankly, I find the self loathing quite puzzling.

Europe does some things right and some things terribly. The grass is NOT always greener on the other side, even though glossy tourism brochures sure do a good marketing job. Travel often opens ones eyes to things you formerly took for granted. Leaving Halifax for 10 years then returning certainly put Halifax in a more flattering light than I could ever have imagined.

North America has made many mistakes with its built form, but there's so many things it got right. Europe is nice to visit, but I'll take a north American city over a European one in a heart beat.

I live in Europe now... and London is a terrible comparison to the rest of europe until recently. Have you been to Madrid, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich? I ain't travelling... I leave here and see it day to day. Hands down europe beats N/A in every category. Maybe Montreal, Toronto, New York and San Fran are close to a european standard, but you're living in a dream world. Public transportation is practically a joke everywhere in North America... that's why people drive so many cars.

I'm from Halifax... we've lost much of our stock of nice stone buildings. Wood frame houses don't excite me unless they are very ornate. They don't belong downtown regardless.

BTW, most of Halifax is an imitation of a UK style (e.g. victorian).

[alps]

A few years back, having grown up during that really stagnant time, it somehow seemed a complete given that the glacial pace of development and NIMBY attitudes in the city would continue indefinitely. The changes that took place recently really surprised me. I'm so excited for the increased density in the SGR (and Barrington) area, and also to be rid of a few more surface parking lots. Just wish there was real action on transit and waterfront development.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by worldlyhaligonian

I'm from Halifax... we've lost much of our stock of nice stone buildings. Wood frame houses don't excite me unless they are very ornate. They don't belong downtown regardless.

BTW, most of Halifax is an imitation of a UK style (e.g. victorian).

A: Wood-framed buildings are a pretty standard maritime style, and if we knock down all of the ones still in the urban core, that's going to be a lot of old buildings we lose, and a lot of our own indigenous architecture. It's also silly to say they don't "belong" there...there are loads of wood-framed buildings in certain European city centres, especially in smaller cities more along the size of Halifax--it all has to do with local architectural traditions.

B: As far as Halifax being an "imitation" of UK Victoriana, it's not at all. Some of those structures were built when Halifax WAS a British city. Later, that style was simply dominant everywhere in the western world. It's not an imitiation, really.


Anyway, as far as isaidso's argument about Halifax being a gem that never reached its potential, I think that's true, and the destructive urban-renewal projects of the mid-century had a lot to do with that (disconnecting the north end from downtown, especially.) But we can take solace in the fact that Halifax wasn't alone. The same can be said of almost every city on this continent, and one of the pleasant side effects of our otherwise unfortunately slow growth has been that we haven't sprawled hideously in all directions as badly, say Vancouver or Toronto.

Halifax's built form, really is better than Toronto's, which is simply a bunch of neighbourhoods strung out on long, long, long main streets. This city is more tightly concentrated around its ceremonial public spaces (Citadel, Common) and its neighbourhoods spoke off in a more radial fashion from the core, rather than simply running forever along a former concession road. Its already an excellent city, but its potential for greatness is really apparent. To me, anyway.

[Keith P.]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

A: Wood-framed buildings are a pretty standard maritime style, and if we knock down all of the ones still in the urban core, that's going to be a lot of old buildings we lose, and a lot of our own indigenous architecture. It's also silly to say they don't "belong" there...there are loads of wood-framed buildings in certain European city centres, especially in smaller cities more along the size of Halifax--it all has to do with local architectural traditions.

When areas were first settled those settlers built wood buildings because it was easier to do and the materials were readily available. With the passage of time and the development of society those were rightfully knocked down and larger, more elaborate structures took their place. Halifax is going through this phase now. Few people marvel at our wooden buildings.

B: As far as Halifax being an "imitation" of UK Victoriana, it's not at all. Some of those structures were built when Halifax WAS a British city. Later, that style was simply dominant everywhere in the western world. It's not an imitiation, really.

The only way you were able to get anything approved in this town until recently was to make it an imitation of a short Victorian building, preferably with red brick cladding and perhaps some styrofoam cornices. We have the Heritage Trust and the city's antiquated planning strategies for this. Halifax is overrun with bad faux-Victorian imitations.

Anyway, as far as isaidso's argument about Halifax being a gem that never reached its potential, I think that's true, and the destructive urban-renewal projects of the mid-century had a lot to do with that (disconnecting the north end from downtown, especially.) But we can take solace in the fact that Halifax wasn't alone. The same can be said of almost every city on this continent, and one of the pleasant side effects of our otherwise unfortunately slow growth has been that we haven't sprawled hideously in all directions as badly, say Vancouver or Toronto.

You are referring to Scotia Square here and I could not disagree more. While it is fashionable to dismiss 1960s planning exercises as wrong, what SS replaced was one of the worst rat-infested slums anywhere. I do not see it as a bad thing.

Halifax's built form, really is better than Toronto's, which is simply a bunch of neighbourhoods strung out on long, long, long main streets. This city is more tightly concentrated around its ceremonial public spaces (Citadel, Common) and its neighbourhoods spoke off in a more radial fashion from the core, rather than simply running forever along a former concession road. Its already an excellent city, but its potential for greatness is really apparent. To me, anyway.

Better than Toronto? While one can perhaps find isolated examples where that may apply, this is a ridiculous statement.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Keith P.

When areas were first settled those settlers built wood buildings because it was easier to do and the materials were readily available. With the passage of time and the development of society those were rightfully knocked down and larger, more elaborate structures took their place. Halifax is going through this phase now. Few people marvel at our wooden buildings.

I disagree that people don't appreciate those structures, especially the grander ones in the South and North Ends. That's our vernacular, and there's no reason to tear them all down. I don't mean right downtown along, say, Barrington and Hollis. But along Inglis, Robie, Agricola, yes.

The only way you were able to get anything approved in this town until recently was to make it an imitation of a short Victorian building, preferably with red brick cladding and perhaps some styrofoam cornices. We have the Heritage Trust and the city's antiquated planning strategies for this. Halifax is overrun with bad faux-Victorian imitations.

No, no, I hate that faux stuff as much as you do. When I said "after" we were a British city I meant post-confederation. Not, say, last year.

You are referring to Scotia Square here and I could not disagree more. While it is fashionable to dismiss 1960s planning exercises as wrong, what SS replaced was one of the worst rat-infested slums anywhere. I do not see it as a bad thing.

I don't want to be rude, but you'd be hard pressed to find any city planner today who would defend the Cogswell/Scotia Square developments. There were certainly crummy buildings, but there were also some enormous brick factories that could've been repurposed as offices and residential, and housing basically similar to what's in the north end today and has been renovated. Scotia Square was a dismal, anti-urban mistake, just as Toronto's Eaton Centre was a poor replacement for the Eaton warehouse complex that was there before. (Hopefully the upcoming renos fix it, somewhat.) The worst part, however, was disrupting the old street grid and making it so difficult to get from downtown to the north end on foot. That exacerbated the North End's decline.

Better than Toronto? While one can perhaps find isolated examples where that may apply, this is a ridiculous statement.

I don't mean architecturally, but in terms of the city's layout, it is better. Toronto is just a grid spread along former concession roads that sprawled out into the farmland. There's no sense of the civic centre (Yonge-Dundas, I guess, but that's pretty depressing) and most of the city is a sprawling, low-density mess that's impossible to service effectively via transit. I'm not saying Halifax is a "better" city than Toronto, but it does have a a superior urban form--better bones, if you will.

[someone123]

It's hard to compare architecture in Toronto and Halifax because the styles are different and what works in one doesn't necessarily work in the other. There are lots nice buildings in Toronto that wouldn't make sense in Halifax, and all the Maritime-looking stuff would just look odd if it were transplanted to Ontario.

It's also a bit strange to talk about how Toronto's less walkable (outside of the comparatively small inner core) or has longer neighbourhood streets because it is so much larger. If Halifax had quadrupled in size around 1920 it would probably have a lot of long, Quinpool Rd like streets.

Halifax does have a few real advantages though. It has a lot more history and has inherited more interesting public spaces like the Citadel, Public Gardens, Grand Parade, etc. etc. It's also a true coastal city and is heavily oriented around its harbour.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's hard to compare architecture in Toronto and Halifax because the styles are different and what works in one doesn't necessarily work in the other. There are lots nice buildings in Toronto that wouldn't make sense in Halifax, and all the Maritime-looking stuff would just look odd if it were transplanted to Ontario.

It's also a bit strange to talk about how Toronto's less walkable (outside of the comparatively small inner core) or has longer neighbourhood streets because it is so much larger. If Halifax had quadrupled in size around 1920 it would probably have a lot of long, Quinpool Rd like streets.

Halifax does have a few real advantages though. It has a lot more history and has inherited more interesting public spaces like the Citadel, Public Gardens, Grand Parade, etc. etc. It's also oriented around its harbour while Toronto is not.

The latter paragraph there is what I'm getting at. I'm not comparing architecture in the two cities--different iterations of Victorian styles, and Toronto was blessed with some decent modernist stuff, whereas Halifax's attempts at modernism are pretty poor.

But Toronto feels centreless. Obviously it's much larger, but so is Montreal, and Montreal still feels oriented around the mountain and other civic spaces. I think that if Halifax had grown much larger in the 19th century, it would today be more akin to Montreal than Toronto, and its obvious centre would still be the Citadel, public gardens, commons, harbour, etc. Toronto has nothing like that, and so it feels lacking a certain gravity, and also feels unplanned. (For example, if it had densified northward, rather than largely to the west and east, it would feel more coherent.) That's not a fatal flaw, since Toronto's neighbourhoods are so varied and functional on their own--but it is a flaw, and Halifax, as a result, has a superior civic structure (IMO).

[halifaxboyns]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I don't want to be rude, but you'd be hard pressed to find any city planner today who would defend the Cogswell/Scotia Square developments. There were certainly crummy buildings, but there were also some enormous brick factories that could've been repurposed as offices and residential, and housing basically similar to what's in the north end today and has been renovated. Scotia Square was a dismal, anti-urban mistake, just as Toronto's Eaton Centre was a poor replacement for the Eaton warehouse complex that was there before. (Hopefully the upcoming renos fix it, somewhat.) The worst part, however, was disrupting the old street grid and making it so difficult to get from downtown to the north end on foot. That exacerbated the North End's decline.

Since you pressed for a planners opinion, I couldn't help but jump in. Granted, since I don't work for HRM I don't mind giving a planners perspective...

I actually agree with KeithP to a degree. Of what I read about this area in the 60's, it was literally ready to burn down - property owners didn't keep the buildings up and it was quite nasty. So I don't think that the exercise (overall) of replacing the area with something new was bad.

That said, I do believe that the damage to the streetgrid was (frankly) epic. It really destroyed an interesting setup that would've been more conducive to transportation (particularly public transportation) if it was still around today. But, I grew up with the way it is, so I can't help but struggle with the way it is now and the fact I'm used to it. But that doesn't mean I think it's good.

I also agree, the design was a typical style for the time which cared more about getting the project done, than it did about how the project fit in. Thankfully, as a profession, we've come a long way and think more about this now.

But the comment you make about the old factories is also interesting and something I didn't really think about until now. One of the things I love about Edmonton's downtown is that there are many old warehouse/factory buildings that have become lofts and I wish we had more of them in Halifax. Calgary has a 'warehouse district' (next to the Stampede) but I don't really get the feel that it's a true district, just a few buildings that are now offices. But it would've been interesting if this could've been done in a different way - say more like Calgary's Core Shopping Centre with the mall on the upper levels connected by pedways. Then the blocks could've remained and then the mall been over a series of buildings.

[halifaxboyns]

Since Worldly and a few others were mentioning downtown transportation and I know WH is living in Europe, I couldn't help but post this link. We thinking we have transportation problems...imagine the difficulty of keeping the tube running!

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by halifaxboyns

Since you pressed for a planners opinion, I couldn't help but jump in. Granted, since I don't work for HRM I don't mind giving a planners perspective...

I actually agree with KeithP to a degree. Of what I read about this area in the 60's, it was literally ready to burn down - property owners didn't keep the buildings up and it was quite nasty. So I don't think that the exercise (overall) of replacing the area with something new was bad.

Yeah, but I think you can say that about loads of downtown neighbourhoods at that time. Do some reading on or Parkdale in Toronto in the 80s, or Alphabet City in NYC in the 70s. (I remember reading a story in some memoir about a car running into an old tenement building in Lower Manhattan, which was in such disrepair it collapsed on impact. Grim, falling-down, awful areas. But today, with much of the building stock renovated, good luck buying property for less than a million bucks.]

That said, I do believe that the damage to the streetgrid was (frankly) epic. It really destroyed an interesting setup that would've been more conducive to transportation (particularly public transportation) if it was still around today. But, I grew up with the way it is, so I can't help but struggle with the way it is now and the fact I'm used to it. But that doesn't mean I think it's good.

...

But the comment you make about the old factories is also interesting and something I didn't really think about until now. One of the things I love about Edmonton's downtown is that there are many old warehouse/factory buildings that have become lofts and I wish we had more of them in Halifax. Calgary has a 'warehouse district' (next to the Stampede) but I don't really get the feel that it's a true district, just a few buildings that are now offices. But it would've been interesting if this could've been done in a different way - say more like Calgary's Core Shopping Centre with the mall on the upper levels connected by pedways. Then the blocks could've remained and then the mall been over a series of buildings.

EXACTLY. Disrupting the street grid and putting in all those hostile carparks and set-back brutalist structures severed the two areas. I thingk tourists rarely venture up to the North End as well, not just because of its reputation, but also because once you hit Cosgwell Street, it looks like the city is done. So you turn back. Some of the buildings were a loss, but the biggest loss was the old street grid, which means that rebuilding the area on an urban scale is going to be extra challenging.

You can get a sense of what the Eaton Centre could've been like in Toronto by looking at the south side of Queen Street, where the old Bay store is, connected by a pedway to the mall on the north side of the street. 50 years ago, that was a massive complex of Victorian warehouses spreading all the way between Yonge and Bay, from Queen to Dundas. Could have made a fantastic example of adaptive re-use, but that wasn't the in thing at the time.

I'm surprised how few old historica warehouses Halifax has, really, given two centuries as a major port. We've got one or two up in the North End, and a few down by Pier 21, but that's it. (I suppose the Historic Properties are warehouses that predate the Victorian age.)

What warehouses do you refer to in Edmonton? I lived there for a few years, and I remember in the northwest part of downtown a few very solid blocks of warehouses, mainly on 104th Street. (BUT, I gotta add, I actually can't think of a Canadian city that's done as much to destroy its historical fabric as Edmonton. It's astonishing how diminished Jasper Avenue is today, if you look at at old photos of what it used to be like.)

[someone123]

Most of the warehouse type buildings in Halifax were built right along the waterfront and they were cleared in the 1970's. The central waterfront and Barrington north of Buckingham Street were packed with industrial buildings.

It's kind of sad when you think that the downtown waterfront was cleared in the 1970's and to date has only been maybe half built up. The only "modern" WDCL project is Bishop's Landing, which was completed around 2000.

This old photo from circa 1920 shows the many wharves. A lot of the buildings near the right end of the photo are also warehouses. Buildings like Morse's Teas were built as warehouses. Just to the right of it is the Ordnance Yard, which is where the 1700's naval clock on the waterfront was placed originally. You can also see the city market building on what is now Albemarle Street; that's one example of a more substantial buildings that did exist in the Scotia Square area. The buildings above that, where the Citadel Hotel construction site is now, were barracks.

I have read that Prince Edward had a 1790's-era brick townhouse around that area (the "city house" to go along with the estate along the basin where the rotunda still exists), and that it survived until fairly recently, but I have never seen photos of it.

[cormiermax]

Just imagine if we built the modern downtown over on Spring Garden, and left the historic city alone. Man we lost way way too much, when looking at that picture Halifax today just looks like a hallow shell.