HALIFAX—The municipal building that houses an important music venue for youth is slated to come down, and advocates for the space are urging the city to build a suitable replacement.

The Halifax Pavilion – used primarily as an all-ages music venue – is a cubic brick building on Cogswell Street that would be easily mistaken for a shed if not for the bright art decorating its exterior walls.

The Pavilion is in the middle of the Halifax Common, a collection of public lands that spans from Cunard to South streets, and is currently under the magnifying glass of municipal staff and consultants. A new Halifax Common Master Plan has been in development since the end of last year.

In a call for planning firms to submit proposals for the Master Plan from September 2017, Halifax Regional Municipality staff said the Pavilion building was in bad shape, and redeveloping it as well as the surrounding area was an “immediate priority.”

"The 60-year-old outdoor swimming and wading pools, and the recreation building (a.k.a. the Pavilion) on the Central Common are in very poor condition and at their end of life. There is an urgent need to replace the deteriorating facilities with a new swimming pool/aquatic facility that better meets user expectations and current standards for inclusive participation,” staff wrote.

Jacquie Thillaye, the president of the Pavilion Youth Association – a non-profit organization that regularly uses the space – doesn’t know when the group will lose its home, but she does know it’s inevitable.

“Right now we're very fortunate to have a home,” Thillaye said in an interview. “But the association is not going to go away. We'll just have to be creative about how we do things.”

The association is asking around about other spaces to use, but without a definitive eviction date or knowledge of final municipal plans, Thillaye said her group hasn’t yet decided how to proceed.

HRM staff and consultants are planning for a multi-purpose space of some kind on the Common, according to Thillaye, and she wants to make sure the plans include the right infrastructure and ethos for nurturing young musicians.

“Ideally what we would like to see is some kind of a performance space that is properly designed, acoustically,” she said.

Thillaye would be happy with a building that could be co-opted for music, theatre, and other arts groups, so long as it’s welcoming and fosters a sense of community.

“There's a really strong need for a good youth hangout place,” she said.

Two public consultation sessions have already taken place for the Halifax Common Master Plan, both of which Thillaye and other Pavilion supporters attended.

Thillaye said youth who use the space showed up to engage with city planners and voice their concerns about losing the Pavilion.

"It was so amazing to see these young people keep coming in the door,” she said.

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Thillaye said her association was also invited to attend a meeting with Councillor Lindell Smith, planning consultants, and other stakeholders to discuss the future of an all-ages music venue on the Halifax Common.

A third public consultation will take place Wednesday evening, April 25, at Citadel High School from 7 to 9 p.m.

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