Parking Garage Won’t Be Built On City Land Near Halifax Common

HALIFAX — A new plan for the redevelopment of the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax moves a controversial parking garage so it no longer encroaches on city land.

The garage is part of the provincial government’s QEII New Generation project, which will see health care services in Halifax centralized in a complex of new buildings surrounding the Halifax Infirmary.

Initially, part of that project called for a parking garage on Robie Street to be demolished and replaced with a new, 800-stall structure on land currently occupied by the parking lot for the Museum of Natural History.

But that plan was scrapped earlier this year after a tender for the project revealed it would be built partially on land used by both the Bengal Lancers equestrian school and the Halifax Wanderers Football Club.

At a virtual meeting on April 9, Halifax Council gave its blessing to an updated plan that moves the parking garage off city-owned land and requires a new pedway to be built over Summer Street connecting the parkade to the main building.

According to HRM’s chief administrative officer, Jacques Dubé, the new plan won’t impact either the Bengal Lancers or the Halifax Wanderers and has “far less of an imposition on the public realm” than the previous one.

For the most part, the council appeared to agree, although some more reluctantly than others.

Councillor Wayne Mason, who was a vocal critic of the original plan, said he thought the province has “ended up with a less impactful, less damaging plan than was originally proposed.”

He said there are some “huge wins” in the plan, including a reasonable setback from Bell Road, a 40 percent smaller parking structure, and no more infringement on Wanderers or Lancers land.

He added, however, that he still doesn’t love it.

“I don’t want anybody to think I’m saying I think it’s great design, there are still issues with it,” he said.

Councillor Richard Zurawski echoed Mason’s concerns. He joined several other members of the council in expressing concern about the city’s control over what the building will ultimately look like.

“What I’m hearing is this isn’t a great deal, it’s just the best that we could do, and it’s better than the lousy deal we were getting before. And it took us a lot of hard work to get that,” Zurawski said

“How much can we influence this and what the final outcome will be in spite of that fact that it’s sitting in our bailiwick?”

Dubé told council the city won’t have any say over what the project looks like in the end, but said the province is working with the city and he’s confident the project will be a good one.

He agreed that the plan isn’t perfect but said it’s “probably the best compromise anyone could achieve … given the time frame that the province is on.”

Although Halifax Council doesn’t have any final say over what the project will look like, on April 9 members voted unanimously to let the province to move forward with its plans for a pedway over Summer Street.

Just before the vote, Coun. Sam Austin urged the province to build something visually appropriate for the area, even if that ends up costing a little more money.

“I encourage our provincial counterparts to take the opportunity to think outside the box and leave us something here we can all be proud of as a city, rather than something we look across the pond and say, ‘ah jeez that’s ugly,’” he said.

“It might cost a few extra bucks but in the grand scheme of [things this is] a billion-dollar project.”