A Case of Convention Centre Ennui

Like a lot of people, I suppose, I have a case of convention centre exhaustion. Perhaps by the time you read this, we’ll know whether the province plans to support the controversial downtown development or not. But I’d still like to make one point.

It’s not about potential tax revenues, or large-scale economic impact, or view planes, or even whether potential conventioneers “need” a new venue with bigger rooms or higher ceilings or whatever.

I just want to take issue with one element of the pro-downtown-convention-centre argument: the suggestion that a convention centre would somehow “revitalize” downtown Halifax, in the cultural sense.

Here’s just one example of that argument. In a recent letter to Halifax Magazine, Nova Scotia Business Inc. CEO, Stephen Lund, extolled what he saw as the benefits of the potential office space attached to the project.

“We’d like to see this tower filled with young finance and accounting grads,” he wrote. “Imagine, for a moment, 2,000 to 2,500 more young people working in downtown Halifax, making wages two to three times the average in our province. ...Think of the money they will spend on new cars, houses and restaurants.”

Oh, I’m imagining it. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings or anything, but a downtown crawling with thousands of young accountants is simply not my idea of a cultural hotbed.

Young financiers aside, this convention centre, if it comes to pass, won’t do anything directly to make downtown Halifax more interesting, more vibrant, or more attractive for Haligonians. Sure, there will be more tourists and office workers around with cash to spend, but downtown has to be about more than bars, offices, hotels and kitschy chain restaurants.

We really need to see more effort put into nurturing the kind of mixed-use applications that might make Haligonians actually want to live and play downtown. Why are there so few families living in the downtown core? Could it be because there’s a lack of affordable housing, few local markets, and very little green space?

We need more support for local businesses that will make our city’s streets more interesting for the citizens of Halifax, not for tourists and visitors. I want my downtown to be full of independently-owned shops selling interesting and original things you can’t buy in tourist outlets or big-box business parks.

I want niche restaurants, a place to get a good burrito, a greasy shawarma or a tasty roti, and spaces where I can sit and people-watch while I enjoy it. I want outdoor performance spaces, buskers, public art and engaging, street-scale, people-friendly architecture.

The fact that so much of the talk about the proposed convention centre is about the potential impact on the economy – and not the culture – of Halifax is disheartening.

If I could spend a Saturday walking around and enjoying my own city, I’d be thrilled. If we opt to leave the downtown in the hands of the accountants and the conventioneers, I suspect we really will get what we pay for.