BANC Group Plans Halifax Development With 400 Apartment Units
HALIFAX – The developer who bought the old Bloomfield Centre property from the Halifax Regional Municipality says he plans to build more than 400 apartment units on the north end site, 10 percent of which will be set aside for affordable housing. This is on top of at least 30,000 square feet of cultural, community, and commercial space.
Alex Halef, the owner of BANC Group, bought the 1.16-hectare property for nearly $22-million on January 27. The project is still in the design phase, so exact details aren’t known yet about what the new mixed-use site will look like. There is also no timeline for when construction will begin.
“It’s obviously a prime piece of property in the city of Halifax. It’s a large property; there’s a multitude of things one can do with the design.”
When the municipality put out a tender to sell Bloomfield, the bidders had to agree to mark 10 percent of units built as affordable housing, as a condition of sale. The city also had other requirements:
- 20 percent of will be reserved for publicly accessible open space
- 10 percent of the residential units will be allocated towards affordable housing
- 20,000 square feet of affordable (below market rate) community and cultural space
Halef, who happens to sit on two boards dedicated to solving the affordable housing crisis in Halifax, says he agrees with the city’s 10 percent requirement on the Bloomfield property.
“I don’t have a problem with it. I think it’s something that’s necessary for our development (as a city),” said Halef, who started BANC Group in 2009.
“So, I don’t have a problem, otherwise I wouldn’t have bid on the project.”
The size and scope of the development demonstrate the population boom happening in Halifax and the demand for more housing units. Banc Investments currently has other projects in development, such as an eight-story building on Wellington Street and a place on Joseph Howe Drive that will have 324 units. Halef says he noticed the demand for rental units start to skyrocket a few years ago in Halifax.
“In 2017 or 2018, things started to shift,” he said. “In real estate, the demand comes quickly, but the response is slow to react. It takes a long time to actually complete projects.”
The sale of the Bloomfield property didn’t come without controversy. A large group of people objected to the sale of this large piece of public land over to a private company. An online petition, calling for HRM to stop the sale before it was finalized, fetched nearly 1,700 signatures.
“The Centre Plan has added no new green space in the North End, despite at least 10 new residential buildings built or under construction,” claims the petition. “Non-profits, community space and art studios are increasingly being pushed to the margins. The future use and ownership of the two full blocks of land occupied by the former school buildings is too valuable to sell in full to the private sector.
“We are asking HRM council to not agree to the current sale, revisit the community needs of the North End from a community perspective and do the right thing for the future of this neighbourhood.”