Founders Square

Along Hollis and Prince Streets in downtown Halifax, Founders Square preserves a row of nineteenth-century commercial façades within a development completed in 1986. The historic buildings associated with the complex date from 1816 to 1865, spanning decades when Halifax’s business district grew around the harbour and the provincial seat of government. Their surviving street fronts retain the scale and architectural variety of that earlier city.

The buildings developed as individual properties, each with its own history. Among them is the Lenoir Building, constructed in 1816 after a fire destroyed many commercial premises in the area. It is recognized as one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in downtown Halifax. The collection also includes buildings historically known as the Geldert, Nova Scotian, Heffernan, Queen, Steampress, Victoria and Hunter buildings. Together, they record the gradual development of the block rather than a single coordinated building project.

During the 1980s, the Province of Nova Scotia assembled the properties on the block bounded by Hollis Street, Prince Street, Sackville Street and Bedford Row. The land was leased for the Founders Square redevelopment, which incorporated historic façades and buildings along the street edges while introducing a substantial office tower behind them. Completed in 1986, the project changed the interiors and overall organization of the block while retaining much of its familiar appearance at street level.

The resulting architecture makes both periods visible. Brick walls, regularly spaced windows and stone detailing establish the older streetscape, while the dark tower rises behind it with recessed corners and stepped forms. Halifax’s heritage inventory recognizes the individual historic façades and also identifies the later tower as a contributing heritage resource for its Postmodern design. Founders Square therefore records two chapters in the city’s development: the growth of its nineteenth-century commercial centre and a twentieth-century effort to incorporate that inheritance into a larger urban project.