July 14, 2008

Customers will help pay for green corporate headquarters for Halifax electric utility

HALIFAX

Nova Scotia’s electric utility will look to its customers to help pay for a multimillion-dollar conversion of an old power plant into a “green” corporate headquarters in Halifax, the company’s president says.

Rob Bennett, president and CEO of Nova Scotia Power Inc., estimated the cost of the building on the city’s waterfront will be at least $50 million by the time it is completed in 2011.

“When the project is developed, it will need to be included in (electricity) rates,” Bennett told a news conference at the edge of Halifax harbour.

However, he added, the impact on customers will be less than all of the other alternatives the company considered.

Bennett estimated payments on the building will be “millions of dollars” cheaper than continuing to lease premium space in the city’s downtown office buildings.

Still, Bennett said it wasn’t clear what impact the project will have on power rates in 2011.

Nova Scotia Power recently announced it is seeking a 12.1 per cent hike in residential rates starting next year.

Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald said his Conservative government plans to fight the application, but he said a new building for downtown Halifax is “a good thing.”

MacDonald said the city’s downtown core will be revitalized by the new waterfront building as well as a proposed 22-storey office tower, to be built by ECL Developments, a subsidiary of Empire Co. Ltd.

Bennett stressed that the utility’s new building will be an attractive replacement for the company’s old, neglected former generating plant that until recently housed movie studios.

Canadian Press

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