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Originally Posted by lio45
Didn't you just say that this is getting demolished?!?
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Unfortunately, yes.
Unless the developer/city/heritage associations can find some way of preserving (at least part of) the building. But so far no preservation has been proposed, all parties have just been passively-aggressively blaming each other. Demolition is supposed to be sometime before the end of the month.
Edit for context:
The building in question, along with the rest of the block, is being demolished for an ~8 storey mixed-use building. This is at the corner of Spring Garden and Queen, across from the Central Library.
One of the viewplanes (height restrictions protecting views to/from the Citadel) passes over the site and I believe the current proposal is at its max viewplane/post-density-bonus height (I'm not sure if density bonusing applied here) and will already be blocking views between the Citadel and new library, ironically.
The developer claims that without any extra height, they can't afford to preserve any of the structure or work the facade into the new design. The Heritage Trust unhelpfully pointed out that the developer should have known what they were getting themselves into when they chose to develop the site, but didn't really offer any support, guidance, funding, etc. The city doesn't seem able to do anything about it because none of the buildings are registered as heritage properties (or if they are the developer has waited out long enough to get a demolition permit).
There's a lot of public dissatisfaction with the whole thing, but as usual we fatalistically accept it. There's also the unfortunate
"we should never be turning down new things ever" crowd.
There are probably less than a dozen other Art Deco buildings in Halifax, and actually another one is currently being torn down. I'm not sure what's happening with the old Central Library (across the street from this site, the other way) but I'm not really optimistic.
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