HALIFAX—Plans have changed for the old convention centre, with a new passport office moving into the heart of the city’s bar district instead of shops and cafés.

The municipality’s design review committee approved plans for an exterior renovation of the old World Trade and Convention Centre on Argyle St., right across from Halifax City Hall, at a meeting on Thursday.

The building is the future home of the LINK Performing Art Centre, a project that secured millions of dollars in funding from the municipal, provincial and federal governments in December.

That facility will include a multidisciplinary performance hall with capacity for 1,800 people; a media and virtual reality production studio; two dance studios; a 160-seat cinema; and office space for cultural non-profits and startups.

It’s expected to cost about $13 million, most of which is coming from the three levels of government, with Halifax agreeing to pitch in $1 million.

Developer Armco Capital owns the building and is already working on a renovation to the interior to accommodate the LINK.

The exterior renovation will see the glass streetwall along Argyle St. torn down and replaced with a higher, two-storey glass structure with a terrace on top. The building will also get a higher streetwall at the corner of Argyle and Duke streets to better match city hall across the street.

Armco originally pitched the exterior project, at a preliminary presentation in January, as a way to liven up the northern end of Argyle St., given the other end of the street is home to an award-winning streetscaping project and many of the city’s bars.

The plan was to add six retail or commercial spaces, each with their own entrances and possibly even patios.

But that space will now be home to one tenant: the federal government.

Armco said it’s signed a 10-year lease with Passport Canada and Service Canada to relocate their offices, currently on Barrington St. and Quinpool Rd., respectively, to the newly renovated space on Argyle St.

Based on the conditions of the lease agreement, Armco was opposed to two conditions that municipal planners wanted to impose on the project’s approval.

Municipal planners were fine with two variations to the land-use bylaws for downtown Halifax for the project, one related to lower streetwall heights and the other to floor to ceiling heights, but they wanted to ensure that the developer added some extra doors and didn’t sink the indoor floorspace any lower than it already is.

The door issue was quickly solved. Municipal planners wanted an extra set of doors further south on the Argyle St. side, toward Carmichael St. The committee voted to add an extra set of doors closer to the corner, which was fine by the developer.

The sunken floor issue was more complicated — and came with an ultimatum.

Along Argyle St., there’s currently a public pedestrian walkway inside the building, connecting Scotia Square to the Scotiabank Centre. That walkway will be moved to the interior of the building as part of the renovations and office space will fill the current walkway space along Argyle St.

The walkway runs far below the sidewalk along most of the street, but is level with the sidewalk at the corner of Argyle and Duke streets. In other words, someone walking along Argyle St. and looking through the glass would look down to the walkway.

Municipal planners didn’t want to worsen that “sunken condition,” as they called it, but Armco said the federal government required the space to be all on one level and it needed to drop part of the floor close to the corner of Argyle and Duke streets.

Marc Ouellet, director of land development at Armco, told the committee that if they had to abide by staff’s preference, Armco would only renovate the interior of the building and abandon its plans to beautify the exterior.

“We have a backup plan is what I’m saying,” Ouellet said. “We’d rather do this because we feel it’s more esthetically appealing, but it’s up to you whether you want to grant the variance or not.”

The committee felt it was a fair trade off.

“The fact that it’s already a sunken condition now, and by increasing the sunken condition, it increases the amount of usable interior space ... I think that idea trumps the sunken condition,” committee member Rob LeBlanc said.

“I think part of it too is that you also get the added benefit of the changes to the façade which essentially, from what we’ve been told, aren’t going to happen without these conditions,” committee chair Colin Duggan said.

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“Unless it’s a bluff,” committee member Erica Armstong said, adding, “No offence, but…”

The committee unanimously passed the plan.

After the meeting, Adam McLean, vice president of development at Armco, said in an email that construction is planned to begin in May and last till October.

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