Photo credit: “Halifax Library (original) (30840738443)” by Sharon VanderKaay. CC BY 2.0.
Across the street from Halifax’s busy new Central Library sits its predecessor. This modern classical landmark at 5381 Spring Garden Road, now empty for more than a decade, is caught between demolition plans and a resurgent public campaign to save it.
Designed by noted Nova Scotian architect Leslie R. Fairn and opened in November 1951, the Halifax Memorial Library was the city’s first public building constructed after WWII, built as a living memorial to the Nova Scotians who died in the First and Second World Wars. The library and surrounding Grafton Park sit atop a historic burial ground, believed to hold the remains of as many as 20,000 people, many of them African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaq. The library closed permanently in August 2014 when the Halifax Central Library opened across the street, and under the terms of the province’s original 1949 grant of the land, if the site is not maintained as either a park or a library, ownership automatically reverts to the Province of Nova Scotia.
A 2020 assessment concluded the building had “reached its end-of-life,” and in July 2024, Halifax Regional Council voted to direct staff to explore options that explicitly included significant or full demolition. The 2025 municipal budget set aside funds for a consultant to plan next steps, and by early 2026, a line item in the draft municipal budget for “development of a park plan” for the site led many observers to conclude that demolition had become the city’s de facto preferred outcome without an independent look at whether the building could be adapted for new use.
That trajectory shifted in June 2026. Following a public presentation on the building’s history that drew a strong show of public support for preservation, Halifax Regional Council voted 15–1 to pause its consulting work on the park-and-demolition plan, giving private and public institutions time to submit formal expressions of interest in alternative uses for the building. No alternative use has yet been confirmed, no funding secured, and the underlying staff recommendation favouring demolition has not been withdrawn. Unless a workable plan for the building materializes, Halifax’s previous conclusion on demolition remains a likely outcome.
Location: Halifax, NS
Endangered Places List: 2026
Status: Endangered
