Quote:
Originally Posted by Hali87
On the other hand, the old Memorial Library is still vacant and the Howe Hall parking lot is still a weirdly large gap along Coburg. Artillery Park is also a weird mystery that takes up a lot of space in the area while not really being clear whether or not it's open to visitors (so no one ever goes).
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Almost all of the weird underused sites around the urban core of Halifax are owned by the public sector one way or another, with one puzzling exception being the United Gulf site.
There are pockets of newer postwar development around downtown that were military land that was sold off for development. There were a lot of barracks around the Citadel that disappeared sometime during the 20th century. Even inside the Citadel itself as late as the 50's or 60's there were more structures than today. The current arrangement of a stripped-down internal parade square surrounded by a giant lawn on the old town side is a bit contrived.
It seems like around the 70's or so most of those sites became more or less stuck as-is and some are now out of sync with the areas around them. Artillery Park has some nice old buildings including 1812 era stuff but the arrangement of the space doesn't really make sense, it feels like a special historical site maintained for military personnel, and some aspects of the maintenance are extremely utilitarian.
I wonder if some of these military sites could shift from military style planning to more of a heritage and urban development mode. Somewhat ironically some of these are probably in worse shape because they are still semi-active, and if they had been completely deemed surplus they would have evolved into something better.
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