Former National Film Board building on Barrington St. to be redeveloped

A Barrington Street property that's been an empty facade for nearly 25 years is finally being redeveloped into a working building. 

The former National Film Board building was destroyed by a fire in 1991, save for its three-storey brick facade. 

For the past year, developer Steve Caryi and architect David Garrett have been working on excavating and building a foundation for a new steel structure that will tie into that original facade. 

"Very difficult site to develop," says Garrett. "It's enclosed on four sides, there's not a lot of space — including height restrictions — to work with.

"I know I've described it as an albatross around the street. And it's fantastic that it's finally coming back into use and eliminating that sad element." 

The architect expects the work to be completed and the building ready for tenants by late 2017.

Facade tied into 'sister buildings'

The NFB Building was built in the early 1890s.

It was known as one of the three "sister buildings" on the block, built in the same style and design as the Old City Club Building next door (now part of the rear section of Neptune Theatre) and the Khyber Building.

Garrett says when the NFB Building was destroyed in 1991, Halifax council decided to preserve the facade because it was tied into the two other sister structures.

The old City of Halifax spent about $150,000 to stabilize the facade with steel supports and it's mostly sat idle since. 

Garrett says the first effort to redevelop the property happened between 2006 and 2010 when he teamed up with a different developer on the project. But that proposal didn't come together because it wasn't commercially viable, he said.

Then, Caryi bought the property. 

Adding extra floor 

The redevelopment will be about the same height as the former NFB building, but will include one extra floor.

Garrett says that's because the original floor-to-ceiling height in the destroyed structure was about 4.2 metres. Reducing that height and fitting in another floor bumped up the commercial viability of the project.

"The idea to do that, to gain that extra square footage, was an idea that developer Steve Caryi came up with," Garrett said.

"That was huge in helping to make this project happen."

The new building will have five storeys plus a basement. The basement and main floor will be commercial space, while the four floors above will have residential units. 

"Steve Caryi has a similar inclination as mine to work with old buildings," says Garrett. "He likes these buildings. He realizes there are commercial values to these older buildings, that we can do more than easily discard them."

Barrington Street renewal

The Halifax Regional Municipality approved the redevelopment in late 2014. Most of the work so far has gone into excavating more hard granite below the original ground floor to add more basement space and build up a larger foundation. Garrett says.

The foundation is about 60 per cent complete. Shortly after that, the steel structure for the new building will go up behind the old facade, probably sometime this summer. 

Garrett says the redevelopment is still on target for its $4-million price tag. 

"It's a piece of the puzzle. Many pieces still have to come back together," says Garrett. "We need to make Barrington Street into a people place again. Right now it's a traffic place.

"I would expect that within four to five years, you'll start to see an actual rebound on this street. But what's happened in the meantime is that a lot of the property owners can see that coming and they started to jack up rental lease rates and that's still keeping people away, and small business owners are having a difficult time. 

"We still see a lot of turnover, a lot of vacancies along this street and not that sign of revitalization."