Halifax Future Skyline Renderings
 

Hello everyone! Over the past couple of years, I've been working on future skyline visualizations a number of Canadian cities. Today, I'm proud to present the first iteration of my future Halifax skyline! For those who aren't familiar with my work, I model the future developments in SketchUp using renderings and the site planning documents made available online, and then I insert them into Google Earth.

I've been able to add a significant amount so far. I have been very impressed by Halifax's wealth of proposed developments, but it is truly unfortunate that they are as spread out as they are, and consequently do not affect the overall skyline much. Also, as an easter egg (which I do with all of my skylines), I wanted to see how an NHL-sized arena would fit into the existing site of the Scotiabank Centre.

Please let me know of any developments that I have missed. I hope you all enjoy my work!

Here's a list of buildings so far (by addresses):

15 Canal (2)
15 Lakelands (1)
114 Wyse (1)
145 Wyse (1)
1377 Robie (2)
1494 Carlton (2)
1591 Granville (2)
2032 Robie (1)
2170 Agricola (1)
2438 Gottingen (1)
2760 Gladstone (1)
2786 Agricola (3)
2859 Robie (1)
3081 Demone (1)
5415 Cogswell (1)
6009 Quinpool (1)
6040 Almon (5)
6200 Young (3)

Total # of new towers in skyline: 30


https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545206532_1a129ae696_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-1 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545066286_301198464e_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-2 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545206487_bed5ac853a_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-3 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545066226_879af21760_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-4 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545066186_30a50b1d55_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-5 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545066096_0499b291d4_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-6 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50544336478_77678cc257_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-7 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50545206257_5f79f813f9_h.jpgHalifax Watermarked V1-8 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Wow! Fantastic work, thanks!

Looks great. A few missing projects I can think of:

- King's Wharf in Dartmouth
- New hospital (on that community garden site in your last picture)
- Cunard
- Ralston redevelopment
- Maybe new art gallery? But there are multiple potential designs, and they're complicated and not very tall.
- Mystery projects 7177 Quinpool and the one on Mumford Road; under construction but only heights are known.
- Cogswell redevelopment but this is a planning vision and not a proposal. It has some decent renderings available though.

It's also missing a few buildings under construction or completed since Google's 3D model itself is now a few years old. Some I noticed are a bunch around Spring Garden Road, the one on Robie next to the Atlantica hotel, Monaghan Square II, The Alexander, and Queen's Marque. Some smaller projects too like the midrise next to the tower going up on Cogswell, in behind the brick rowhouses.

Eric my boy you have found your Niche. Great work!

Really awesome work!

I would add:
- Robie and Cunard
- South Park Lofts
- Brenton Suits
- Sister Sites
- Hotel in Dartmouth at Prince Albert and Glenwood
- NRTH on Gottingen and the other handful of projects in that area of Bilby, Almond and Gottingen.

Great work Eric.

Very cool, thanks for posting!

This should also be posted in the Future Skyline Thread in the Canada section. That thread is dominated by Toronto. It would be nice to give it some variety. :)

Nice work!

Thank you everyone! I'm excited to keep working on the model and adding to it as Halifax's development scene progresses. You have a wonderful city over there and I would love to visit it someday!

That's fantastic work. It's awesome to see how it will all look in a few years. This is a great reference post.

I find Richmond Yards look a little clunkier than I would have thought. The tower doesn't jump out with other buildings growing off it.

A nice gem lurking in the background is the Bayer's Lake Hotel Tower. I have my doubts on the actual finish (or uniformity of it) considering the developer's CV, maybe "great from far, far from great" situation.

Happy 2022 everyone! I'm back with another update to my Halifax future skyline. I have added a lot of the smaller and newer developments and now have almost double the buildings that were in the first iteration of my model. I will eventually be adding King's Wharf and the Bedford Waterfront developments, but I am waiting for the imagery to update on Google for King's Wharf (I'm having an issue getting the development to display properly in the water), and am still digging for info to help me better model the original version of the Bedford Waterfront while it sits in purgatory. Either way, I hope you all enjoy the images!

Halifax, NS:

Total # of new towers in skyline: 58

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793020883_c798c5e8fb_k.jpgHalifax V2-1 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793640665_f4462f3143_k.jpgHalifax V2-2 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793640420_70de6ba155_k.jpgHalifax V2-3 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793275224_a4ce98a823_k.jpgHalifax V2-4 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793020313_eede461324_k.jpgHalifax V2-5 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51791953862_4096cb04e4_k.jpgHalifax V2-6 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51793639760_581b7cb5e7_k.jpgHalifax V2-7 by Eric MacMillan, on Flickr

Thank you Eric, once again nice work.

Yes, these are great.

I posted in the Canada section that one thing that jumps out to me is how old so many of these proposals are. While there has been more growth in Halifax in the past few years, I'm not sure there are a lot of newer proposals that are more grandiose than what might have been proposed in 2016 or so. Once exception might be the trio of 30 storey towers in Dartmouth by the bridge.

There are 0 recent major downtown proposals. Maybe something will move forward on the Ralston site.

I don't know if you need a final building shape for what for this, but Shannon Park and Penhorn are pretty significant developments that i don't think are on there

Yeah, thanks for that! It's nice to see all of them in place as it gives you a good idea of which areas are seeing major 'facelifts' due to significant new developments, and which areas have stagnated somewhat.

Your work shows that most of Halifax's developments appear happening in the Spring Garden Road/Robie Street corridors, while the downtown has slowed.

Also, Dartmouth is starting to pick up and could very likely be the next hotspot for development once the low-hanging-fruit Halifax spots are used up. Transit improvements that are coming (fast ferry, BRT, etc.) will likely make Dartmouth a more attractive residential area for those commuting to Halifax that haven't wanted to get into the bridge bottleneck situation.

The downtown will see another period of rapid growth once Cogswell is reconfigured, however.

Regarding Bedford, it's not clear to me that there are currently any solid plans for development on the waterfront, except for the new ferry terminal that is supposed to be coming soon (2026?). However, there have been a number of developments along the Bedford Highway, but none tall enough to make any difference to the skyline.

These are great, thanks!

i think a few recent builds are missing - Queen's Marque, The Alexander and the one across from it on Bishop, The George on Robie.

Renderings are amazing.

It also reveals two things to me:

1) There is still significant potential for development in downtown/north end.

2) Even with what is "yet to be built", it is obvious that Halifax is growing outward and not up. More taller buildings are needed to boost the housing options for the peninsular population and put less stress on public transit to far flung areas.

Robie should have a tram, possibly Quinpool as well.