Halifax developer planning apartments to replace demolished historic Hantsport building

A building steeped in Hantsport history was reduced to rubble earlier this month.

The two-storey building, located at 35 William St., was built in the late 1850s and served a variety of functions in the former town. Originally a factory during the age of sail, it later was transformed into a community hall, post office, movie theatre, dance hall, scientific laboratory, food bank and convenience store – to name a few uses over the decades.

Longtime Hantsport resident Brian Bishop was on-site when construction crews began dismantling the weathered building on Jan 2. For him, it marked the end of an era.

“It had a tremendous history within this community over the years. That’s why I was interested in recording it,” said Bishop, who is involved with the Hantsport and Area Historical Society.

He watched for three hours as an excavator smashed through the building that had been vacant for about a decade. He said the last tenant – a chubby raccoon – scurried out as the final walls were coming down.

 

LONG HISTORY

Bishop retrieved a beam from the building for posterity.

“They let me come on-site and look for things that I might be able to salvage, but I couldn’t really find anything. I was hoping to find something from the different eras,” he said.

“There was nothing that I could see that would say, ‘Oh, wow, this was from the York Theatre days’ or ‘This was from the Churchill shipbuilding days,’” he continued. “There was very little because the building would have been renovated many, many times over the years. So, I suspect that any memorabilia like that would have disappeared a long time ago.”

Sturdy wooden beams and other remnants could be seen from William Street in Hantsport after an 1850s building was demolished.

The property was deeded to a group of individuals in 1856 and the building was soon constructed. The Faulkner Block Factory produced wooden blocks for area shipyards.

“It was a block factory that made all of those in wooden stationary pulleys or permanent pulleys,” Bishop said. “The upper floor was for mending sails.”

The open concept floor design also allowed workers to lay out patterns required for keels and different parts of the ship, Bishop added.

In the 1860s, a portion of the building was removed, converted into a home and relocated elsewhere in Hantsport to make way for the railway.

As Hantsport’s shipbuilding industry wound down, Ezra Churchill took ownership of the property, called it Churchill Hall, and turned it into a performing arts centre, where minstrel shows, concerts, socials, teas, and public meetings were held.

Bishop’s great-great-grandfather W.A. Porter, who was Hantsport’s first mayor, partnered with one of the North family shipbuilders and launched a furniture factory upstairs. They employed several master carpenters who would have worked on sailing vessels. Bishop still has two solid kitchen chairs that were made in the 1880s.

The building changed hands multiple times in the 1900s. It housed the post office until 1929.

In the early 1900s, it was known as the Empire Theatre and then in the 1920s, the York Theatre.

The York Theatre, pictured sometime in the 1950s, entertained hundreds of people when it was in operation.

Bishop, who grew up in Hantsport, fondly recalls visiting the York Theatre in the 1950s as a young boy.

“What was really interesting for me as a child was going to the Saturday matinees. The railway track ran right by (the building), within 15 feet of where we lined up to go into the movies. We could almost reach out and touch the trains as they were going by,” Bishop recalled, noting they were always entertained watching livestock pass by on the railcars.

“Of course, once the movie started, the other trains that came through besides those freight trains were the gypsum trains and it would shake the building,” he said with a laugh.

Several organizations called the building home over the years, including the Oddfellows Lodge, which owned it for a time, Poyntz Lodge, which was the Hantsport branch of the Masonic Lodge, the Order of Foresters, The Sons of Temperance, 76 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps Minas, and the Glooscap Archery Club.

In 1969, Bishop and a handful of other Hantsport men pooled their resources and purchased the building. It became the York Club, which was mainly a social dance hall. Bishop said they held dances for teenagers every Friday night and he oversaw booking the live bands. He worked with Donald K. Donaldson entertainment agency that was based in Halifax and even booked a young April Wine to perform in Hantsport. The Winport Dance Club also rented space there.

Hantsport’s post office was once located in the Faulkner Block Factory building on William Street. It moved out in 1929.

The Keyes Fibre Local 576 Union took over ownership in 1971 and used it as a warehouse. In the early days of Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op, the business, which was founded in the late 1990s, used the building as a warehouse and chocolate factory.

“Another significant piece of history in that building is that in the 1990s … it was a laboratory,” Bishop said, noting it was run by Acadia University professors.

“They discovered a way to predict if somebody was going to have the AIDS virus,” he said. “That sort of really projected them onto the international stage because HIV was huge at that time, and they came up with this rapid testing kit that a person could determine within a matter of minutes whether or not that they were likely going to develop AIDS.”

Bishop, and his wife, Shirley, were very involved with the Hantsport and Area Community Food Bank and, for a time in the early 2000s, the organization was housed at 35 William St.

He said at the time, Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-operative owned the building and was primarily using it for storage.

Brian Bishop examines a chair made in the 1880s in the furniture factory on the upper level of Churchill Hall. It was sold by W.A. Porter, Bishop’s great-great-grandfather.

“We had gotten flooded out in our previous facility on Main Street and they kindly allowed us – rent free – to go in and use the bottom portion (of the building),” Bishop recalled.

In 2012, the building changed hands again, and the new owner opened a convenience store and renovated the upstairs to be an apartment.

After about a year in operation, the business wasn’t successful, Bishop said, and the owner moved out.

The building has been vacant ever since.

“There was a bit of an emotional feeling for me – a sense of loss of something that had been such a big part of this community … since 1850, and having had a personal connection to the building, not only as one who was just a patron of the building, but one who worked in it and owned it,” Bishop said, reflecting on the building’s demolition.

 

REZONED IN 2023

In April 2023, Michael Lawen of Cornerstone Developments Ltd. applied for a permit to build a five-storey apartment. His request triggered West Hants council to approve amending the Hantsport land use bylaw in September to increase the height and number of dwelling units permitted in the mixed commercial/residential (C2) zone.

The bylaw originally allowed a maximum height of 35 feet for all main buildings except within the industrial (M) zone; and a maximum of 20 units per apartment building in the Mixed Commercial/Residential (C2) zone.

The amendment saw the maximum building height increase to 55 feet for main buildings in the C2 zone and dwelling units increase to 40 per building.

While there was some opposition and concerns from residents, the change was approved.

Hantsport resident Bill Preston was one of the locals who had concerns about the project, especially due to the location.

“William Street is a very narrow and busy street, with the post office being close as the credit union. The fire station (is) just across the street. Workers for the Canadian Keyes Fiber also use William Street to go to and from work,” Preston wrote. “Parking will be a problem with that location. Height is problematic – it just will not fit in with the surrounding buildings, for example the new fire station is approximately 42 feet.”

Tim Carr, a Hantsport resident and business owner, wrote a letter in support of the proposal, indicating the apartment complex would help the former town grow.

“Hantsport has no current available rentals and few homes for sale. There is a real demand to live in this community,” Carr wrote.

“Hantsport is extremely walkable, with excellent municipal services, fire service and numerous recreational opportunities. Our community is limited in space for new development. It’s time to start building upwards in our population centres,” Carr continued.

In a recommendation report, Mark Phillips, West Hants’ chief administrative officer, sided with the planning department’s request to change the land use bylaw.

“Increases in the height, number of units and parking reduction requirements are in keeping with developments in other growth centres and will allow for more density within the serviced areas,” Phillips wrote.

 

WHAT’S PLANNED

Lawen, the developer, said he has owned the property since 2019 and plans to construct an apartment building intended for mature, age 50-plus, residents.

“Hantsport is one of the nicest, quietest towns you could live in,” Lawen said when reached Jan. 9.

Lawen, who hails from Halifax, envisions building a 40-unit apartment, four storeys above ground, with one storey of heated, underground parking.

He says there will be an elevator, a multi-purpose room with commercial kitchen, a library and a fitness room included in the building.

Lawen said he’s waiting for final permits from West Hants and then construction can begin. He hopes to have it completed within two years.

“We haven’t even advertised it; promoted it yet. I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot of people (interested),” he said, noting he’s arranged with the government to include 20 affordable units.

As for what the building will be called, Lawen said he’s honouring Hantsport’s rich baseball history and naming it Shamrock Corner.