Historic buildings for sale in downtown Halifax months after heritage registration rejected

Several historic buildings nestled along a popular downtown Halifax street are now listed for sale on a commercial real estate site as “an exceptional opportunity for a mixed-use development”.

The Halifax Examiner first reported on the commercial listing of the properties called, “The Queen and Birmingham project”.

The project is listed under 1525 Birmingham St. in Halifax and comes with five properties, including several Queen Street row houses built in the late 1800s.

Earlier this year, regional council voted against a recommendation from city staff to include 17 properties under the Registry of Heritage Property. The registration would have formed three heritage streetscapes along Queen, Birmingham, and Grafton streets.

Several property owners spoke at the hearing and weren’t in favour of the registration.

Many stated they aren’t against heritage preservation but the current incentives to register their properties aren’t enough to gain their approval.

“These grants are for external features and priority is given to a publicly visible facade, even if the back might be falling down. This is a superficial approach, anyone who owns an old building knows that a nice outside appearance doesn’t tell the whole story,” Suzy MacLean, manager of Woozles Childrens Bookstore, told council during the March 10 heritage hearing.

“Preserving a building also requires inside work, and foundation work, and these elements are not covered by your proposal,” MacLean said.

During the hearing, principal heritage planner Aaron Murnaghan described the recommendation of three heritage streetscapes as one of the ‘most contentious’ heritage issues brought to council in recent years.

“Council has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to determine if additional historic buildings should be added to the registry,” he said.

In 2009, an inventory of potential heritage buildings in downtown Halifax was recorded with the intent of protecting them from being demolished over time.

That protection would in part depend on whether the buildings were registered as heritage properties.

Murnaghan told council that upwards of 40 per cent of that inventory has since been demolished to make way for new development and it’s not unreasonable to expect the remainder of those buildings will be demolished within the next 15 to 20 years.

Councillor Waye Mason says without heritage registration, properties like the Queen Street row houses may end up being demolished.

“The only way to save them was to register them as heritage buildings. That was not done, there is nothing that can be done now. Except whoever buys the property from Mathers, who have consolidated their offices in Burnside, may be convinced to save some part, or all of those houses but right now there is no legislative way to protect those buildings,” Mason said.

Brian Lane is the CEO of I.H. Mathers, a marine, offshore and logistics company, that’s been in operation for over a century.

He says the houses on Queen Street were in poor shape when they were acquired and that an engineer determined they aren’t structurally sound.

“There’s nothing really salvageable in those properties. Just their physical condition is such that you can’t even incorporate them into anything else. So, it did not seem wise to us that they would be designated heritage because they’re certainly not in any condition to recover and we actually had an engineer physically look at them to draw those conclusions,” Lane said.

Mason says more work needs to be done to ‘sell’ heritage registration to property owners.

“We have a lot of work to do to educate potential heritage property owners that they can still change their property and they can still have tremendous value from their property,” Mason said.

Mason points to the Barrington Street Conservation District as an example of how heritage can be achieved in a way that still allows owners to develop their property.

“You look at Sam the Record Man, or you look at the Green Lantern on Barrington Street, they’ve been substantially altered and renovated but they’re still heritage buildings that are really valuable,” he said.

Mason adds that more funding needs to be included in heritage registration proposals to make it worthwhile for owners.

Lane echoes that comment, stating the heritage program needs to be improved to attract owner buy-in.

“It’s certainly limiting in terms of what can physically be built. Clearly, they’re encouraging heritage but it’s just the model they need to look at it when it’s looked upon by property owners as a negative as opposed to a positive,” Lane said.