People Cities
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.
I have a photograph of the team that launched our newspaper ‘here’ back in 2000. We’re leaning against the “Canterbury Carpark,” a historic 19th-century brick building in uptown Saint John.
At the time, the bottom floor was hollowed out for parked cars and a ramp led to parking on the upper floors. More than 20 years later, Historica has transformed the building into a neighbourhood hub. There’s a Picaroons taproom and store and Pomodori Pizzeria on the ground floor; renovated apartments occupy the top floors.
It realized a vision shared by the founders of ‘here’ that the city centre becomes revitalized and repopulated after decades of people migrating to the suburbs, leaving cities like Saint John with hollowed-out urban cores.
In cities like Saint John and Halifax, these were mostly welcome developments. But they did create controversies about the preservation and renovation of heritage buildings, which are central features of both cities.
I live in a 19th-century home in the uptown Saint John heritage district and work in a restored brick building that was once a bus station; I look across the street at a building that used to house my grandfather’s dental practice. I value the history of these buildings and admire the entrepreneurs who have restored and repurposed them.
But I’ve become more pragmatic over the decades. There are now many renovated buildings with apartments, cafés, restaurants, galleries, and shops, but many iconic buildings have been torn down and something new erected in their place. I’m fine with this, though I might not have been 20 years ago.
The iconic “jelly bean” apartment buildings on the corner of Wellington Row and Union Street have been torn down and mixed-income housing development is now under construction. The Gothic Arches church has been demolished and replaced by The Wentworth, a seven-storey apartment building. Across the street from where I work, the same developer tore down the old Woolworth’s building in the city centre and plans to build a 12-storey building with commercial and residential tenants.
All these developments followed years of controversial debates over the value of preserving the buildings and failed attempts to come up with concrete plans to do so.
So, I was very interested to read Trevor Nichols’ story earlier this week about a proposed downtown Halifax residential development that would also preserve the building known as “The Elmwood,” in the city’s south end.
Related: Historic Downtown Inn To Be Altered With Nine-Storey Highrise
The developers are seeking permission to move the building, nearly 200 years old, to another part of the property, tear down the back wing and construct a nine-storey tower that connects with the inn. They have also promised to restore the inn itself and replace missing historical elements.
Trevor has followed this development as it passes through the approval process and two things struck me as noteworthy in his account of the story.
One, if the developer’s plan goes ahead, it will be one of at least three projects in Halifax where an apartment or hotel tower is being added to a heritage building as part of a larger development.
In March, the Halifax Regional Council approved a plan that would see a 10-storey tower added to the historic Waverley Inn, constructed in the 1860s and turned into an inn in the 1890s, on Barrington Street.
Last August, the Halifax and West Community Council approved a development agreement that would see a 13-storey tower constructed and connected to the historic Victoria Hall, which was built in 1880 and designed by well-known Halifax architect Henry Busch, on Gottingen Street.
Two, Trevor pointed out that Heritage Advisory Committee Chair Patrick Connor seemed surprised there was no opposition to the proposal. It passed unanimously and committee members had very few questions.
Of course, the project still needs to be approved by Halifax Regional and be debated in a public hearing, where the Waverley Inn project faced opposition from residents.
Projects like this are nonetheless going ahead in places like Saint John and Halifax, mainly because of the demand for new housing in city centres.
The Gottingen Street high-rise will have 130 units of housing with 30 more units inside Victoria Hall itself.
The addition to “The Elmwood” building will expand the capacity of the complex from 12 to about 79 residential units.
In Saint John, the three recent projects I mentioned will all significantly increase the housing stock in the city centre.
“The Wentworth” on the site of the old church is seven storeys high, with more than 80 residential units. “The Wellington” complex replacing the “jelly bean” buildings will have six floors with nearly 50 units. When it’s eventually constructed, the tower on the site of the former Woolworth’s building would have more than 90 units.
There is even a new apartment complex with a boutique clothing job that was once a parking lot across the street from the old “Canterbury Carpark” building where our picture was taken.
All this development would have surprised and heartened me and my friends more than 20 years ago, with many of the city centre’s treasured heritage buildings unoccupied or emptying of people. The restoration work and the demolitions and rebuilds over the last two decades are helping bring them back.
Ultimately, the buildings don’t matter as much as the people that occupy them.