Halifax Forum’s future questioned as mayor calls development price tag unaffordable

Mayor Andy Fillmore argues the Halifax Forum needs a more affordable redevelopment plan.

The Halifax Forum redevelopment project and the facility’s future is in question again after Mayor Andy Fillmore said the $125 million development is unaffordable.

That comment came as a surprise to the Halifax Forum Community Association, which helps oversee the management and use of the historic site.

“The idea that you’d stop the project now, when it’s well underway, just doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Paul Card, board chair with the Halifax Forum Community Association.

“We’re about a year-and-a-half until shovels in the ground.”

He says the goal is to have the new facility ready to go and open to the public in early 2030.

Card adds the Forum is essential to the community and believes a community facility and multi-pad arena needs to continue forward at the current location.

“There’s over 400,000 people that visit this facility for non-ice related events every single year. It is busy all the time,” said Card. “The idea that you’d now decide to cancel it and tear the facility down and replace it with high-rises, seems a bit silly to me.”

Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore calls the $125-million development price tag unaffordable right now and points back to the original cost estimates in 2014, which were around $40 million.

Speaking to a room of commercial property owners last month, the mayor said the redevelopment plan should be scrapped, calling the land too valuable and stating it could be part of a bigger housing development project.

“There is a way, if we let go of the Forum so that we leverage the value of that land, to build a two-pad or even a three-pad elsewhere or nearby, at a lower cost because it’s new construction,” said Fillmore.

When asked, the mayor would not say where another arena facility could go.

“I got a ballpark estimate from a builder who builds these things, saying depending on the bells and whistles… would be between $40 and $45 million to build this kind of thing,” said Fillmore.

There’s a plan, according to Fillmore, to build a super-cluster of homes in the area, with upwards of 10,000 housing units in the underutilized north-end block surrounded by Windsor, Robie, Almon and Young streets, that includes the Halifax Forum and Canada Post headquarters and processing facility.

The Forum Community Association says the most recent staff report on the Forum hasn’t been made public. It was moved to an in-camera discussion in December, and Card wants the report released.

“The mayor is making comments that the facility isn’t worth it based on a report that nobody can read,” said Card.

Budget discussions resume at council this week.

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