We asked ChatGPT whether Halifax is a good place to do business; here's what the AI website told us

ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence (AI) web tool that is offering up answers to pretty much any question you throw at it, was happy to provide HBB with a response to the query: "Is Halifax a good place to do business?"

"Halifax is considered a good place to do business due to several factors, including its strategic location as a gateway to Atlantic Canada, a highly educated workforce, a lower cost of living compared to other major cities, and a strong innovation ecosystem. Additionally, Halifax has a thriving port and is a hub for several industries, including information technology, finance, and the creative arts. However, the suitability of Halifax as a location for business will depend on the specific needs and requirements of each individual company."

That was way too one-sided for our news sensibility, so we asked another question: "What are the positives about doing business in Halifax, and what are the negatives?" This time the computer spit back something a bit more balanced:

"Positives of doing business in Halifax include:

1. Strategic Location: Halifax is a gateway to Atlantic Canada and is well-connected to North America and Europe.

2. Highly Educated Workforce: Halifax has a highly educated and skilled workforce, making it attractive to companies in sectors such as information technology and finance.

3. Lower Cost of Living: The cost of living in Halifax is lower compared to other major cities, making it a more affordable option for businesses.

4. Strong Innovation Ecosystem: Halifax has a thriving startup scene and is home to several incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs that support the growth of new businesses.

5. Thriving Port: Halifax is a major port city and a hub for several industries, including shipping, trade, and logistics.

Negatives of doing business in Halifax include:

1. Seasonal Weather: The weather in Halifax can be harsh and unpredictable, especially in the winter months, which can make it challenging for businesses that rely on outdoor operations.

2. Limited Market Size: The market size in Halifax is relatively small compared to other major cities, which can limit growth opportunities for some businesses.

3. High Tax Rates: The tax rates in Halifax are relatively high compared to other provinces in Canada, which can increase the cost of doing business.

4. Skilled Labor Shortage: Despite the highly educated workforce, there may be a shortage of skilled labor in certain industries, which can make it difficult for businesses to find the right talent.

5. Access to Capital: Access to capital and investment opportunities may be more limited in Halifax compared to other major cities, which can limit the growth potential of some businesses."

And there you have it.

-HBB

A hungry reporter searches for the peninsula's cheapest supermarket - and it's not Pete's

This month’s report that food prices have risen about 10% over the past year confirmed what every Nova Scotian already knows: a single trip to the grocery store can clobber your monthly budget. For many of us, that’s ‘bye bye weekend wallet.’

High grocery prices had me wondering: for Haligonians living on the peninsula, what is the cheapest option for filling a fridge? I set out to find an answer.

First of all, what are the options for grocery shopping?

On the peninsula, there are three major grocery chains: the Loblaws-owned Atlantic Superstore, Sobeys and the Walmart supercentre. And there’s Pete’s Frootique & Fine Foods, a small-ish, high-end supermarket on Dresden Row that was sold to Sobeys in 2015.

Atlantic Superstore and Sobeys have three locations each on the peninsula, while the only Walmart supercentre is by the Mumford terminal, just making it onto the peninsula. Pete’s is one of a kind.

It’s worth noting there are other options. A variety of Asian grocery stores can be found in the Quinpool area, including M&Y and the cheap, unassuming Food & Nutrition. Convenience stores carrying essentials like milk and eggs abound, and there are butcher shops scattered around, including the fairly affordable Halal Meat Market in the North End.

But none of these places carries the range of groceries that the chains do. Let’s face it—Halifax residents looking for a relatively affordable one-stop grocery haul will be visiting one of the major supermarkets.

Pete’s is an especially popular store considering it markets itself as a purveyor of fine foods. You can get all produce and essentials at Pete’s and it’s the closest option for residents right downtown, the second being the Atlantic Superstore on Barrington Street.

Now that we’ve narrowed our list of grocery options to the Atlantic Superstore, Sobeys, Walmart and Pete’s, how do we define a grocery haul?

I made a list of 10 items that might be found in a grocery basket. Each person’s basket would of course look different, depending on taste preferences and dietary needs. I did not include long lasting items like butter and cooking oils, which are purchased every few weeks. The goal was to assemble a nutritious pantry allowing one person to eat for one week.

Here’s what I came up with for a generally relatable list:

Produce:

3 peppers

1 head of broccoli

1 kilogram of onions.

Carbs:

1 pack (410 grams) of spaghetti

1 loaf of whole grain bread

1 kilogram of rice.

Animal products:

1 litre of milk

1 kilogram of chicken

1 carton of medium eggs.

I also threw in a bag of potato chips because, who knows, there might be a storm and, to be frank, this haul would otherwise make for a pretty damn boring week for someone's taste buds.

You could make a simple stir fry a few times of chicken, rice and broccoli like a gym nut, and toast and eggs. It’s pretty bare bones, but it’ll feed you.

I collected prices for this food basket at each of the major stores. For Atlantic Superstore, I visited the store on Quinpool Road and for Sobeys the one at the corner of North and Windsor streets. I did not consider temporary sales, but did look at each chain's discount brand. For Atlantic Superstore, that’s President's Choice. For Walmart, Great Value. For Sobeys, Compliments.

Pete’s has no discount brand. In fact Pete’s tends to carry only expensive brands. You can’t get a bag of Lay’s at Pete’s but you can get gourmet kettle chips or something odd imported from the U.K…fancy some “cheese and onion crisps,” anyone?

Anyway, here’s what I found:

Superstore Sobeys Walmart Pete's

Bread $4.29 $3.29 $2.47 $4.19

Spaghetti/410g $2.99 $3.99 $2.37 $4.79

Rice/kg $4.90 $3.88 $2.74 $4.61

Eggs carton $4.99 $4.99 $4.68 $5.29

Milk/ltr $2.59 $2.99 $2.59 $3.09

Chicken/kg $18.28 $16.24 $14.93 $22.02

Onions/kg $1.35 $1.80 $2.18 $1.99

Peppers/3 $4.99 $6.99 $3.97 $8.95

Broccoli/head $3.99 $3.99 $2.97 $2.49

Chips $2.99 $3.99 $1.27 $5.49

Basket total $51.36 $52.15 $40.17 $62.91

For fresh produce, the Atlantic Superstore is cheaper than Sobeys for most things, but Walmart wins easily as I found that its grocery basket is 22% cheaper than even the Atlantic Superstore. For affordability, the clear choice for cheap food is Walmart.

Some produce at Pete’s is surprisingly cheap, broccoli being the only example on the chart. But mostly it’s quite pricey.

For discount brands, Compliments products tend to be cheaper than PC ones, but Great Value from Walmart wins again.

For most people living on the peninsula, their closest spot is likely an Atlantic Superstore. Though the Atlantic Superstore and Sobeys are neck in neck for prices, it looks like the superstore option is the slightly better option.

–HBB

Big: Nova Scotia's Top 20 Real Estate Deals of 2022

Dartmouth was the place for Nova Scotia’s top real estate deals of 2022.

The biggest was the creation in August of a $228 million joint venture that controls about one-third of HRM’s 9 million square feet of leasable industrial space. Ownership of the venture is shared between Pro Real Estate Investment Trust (Proreit), a Montreal-based property firm, and Crestpoint Real Estate Investments Ltd., a unit of Toronto-based Connor, Clark & Lunn. All but one of the 42 properties contributed to the portfolio are in Burnside Industrial Park, which HRM bills as the largest concentration of industrial space east of Montreal. The venture's lone site outside Nova Scotia is in Moncton.

Ranking second on HBB’s list was the $82.5 million purchase in July of 2 Killkee Gate, current site of the Ocean Breeze Village townhomes and the undeveloped land around them. The buyer of the 57-acre property, which lies at the foot of the MacKay Bridge near the Dartmouth off-ramp, was Basin Heights Community GP Ltd.

Third and fourth were downtown Halifax locations on Hollis Street: the former Canada Revenue Agency building, which has been demolished for redevelopment after being acquired in February for $45 million; and a 223,000-square-foot office tower bought by a Montreal real estate investor for $40 million on December 28.

Deciding what constituted a “deal” was not so straightforward, and we had to set some ground rules. HBB settled on a single transaction or a series of related transactions that, except for the Proreit/Crestpoint marquee pact, had the same buyer and seller and closed on the same day.

Significant examples of multiple transactions counting as one deal included the $37.6 million double purchase by Skyline Apartment REIT of Bedford apartment buildings in the area between Larry Uteck Blvd. and Hammonds Plains Road; Shannex's purchase of two Milestone Communities seniors residences in Bedford for $35.8 million; and the $29.7 million acquisition by the Housing Trust of Nova Scotia of three Halifax residential properties and two Dartmouth sites from S.T.R. Projects Ltd.

Omitted from the HBB ranking were what look like two intra-company transfers. The first was the re-assignment of 28 properties, many appearing in Google Maps as gasoline stations, from one Irving Oil entity to another. The second involved a Truro industrial site owned by Intertape Polymer after the company was acquired by a U.S. private-equity firm.

Only two of the deals involved property outside the HRM. The bigger of these was the $12 million sale of a retirement home in Bridgewater. The other was GFL Environmental Inc.’s $10 million purchase of a landfill in the District of Guysborough. The seller was the municipality.

All of the data that follows was obtained from publicly available sources including PVSC and Property Online.

1

Pro Real Estate Investment Trust/Crestpoint Joint Venture

$228 million

Date: Multiple

2

2 Killkee Gate, Dartmouth

$82.5 million

Date: July 7, 2022

Buyer: Basin Heights Community GP Ltd.

Seller: Dartmouth Investment Ltd.

3

1557 Hollis Street, Halifax

$45 million

Date: February 18, 2022

Buyer: 1557 Hollis Investments Ltd.

Seller: Canada Lands Co. CLC Ltd.

4

1801 Hollis Street, Halifax

$40 million

Date: December 28, 2022

Buyer: Edifice 1801 Hollis Inc.

Seller: Canadian Property Holdings (Nova Scotia) Inc.

5

Skyline Apartment REIT

$37.6 million

Date: March 3, 2022

245 Innovation Drive, Bedford

200 Broad Street, Bedford

Buyer: Skyline Real Estate Holdings Inc.

Seller: D.D. 245 Innovation Ltd., D.D. 200 Broad Ltd.

6

81 Dellridge Lane, Bedford

$36 million

Date: April 6, 2022

Buyer: Dellridge Apartments Ltd.

Seller: Dellridge Developments Ltd.

7

Milestone Communities

$35.8 million

Date: January 26, 2022

1) 670 Broad Street, Bedford

2) 696 Broad Street, Bedford

Buyer: Shannex RLC Ltd.

Seller: BYN Properties (The Pemberley) Ltd., BYN Properties (The Highbury) Ltd.

8

Housing Trust of Nova Scotia

$29.7 million

Date: June 30, 2022

18 Crown Drive, Halifax

240 Portland Street, Dartmouth

21 Albert Street, Dartmouth

27 Evans Ave., Halifax

35 Evans Ave., Halifax

Buyer: Housing Trust of Nova Scotia

Seller: S.T.R. Projects Ltd.

9

114 Woodlawn Road, Dartmouth

$27.75 million

Date: December 19, 2022

Buyer: Woodlawn Future Ltd.

Seller: SBLP Woodlawn Shopping Centre Inc.

10

215 Chain Lake Drive, Halifax

$20.3 million

Date: February 16, 2022

Buyer: ME Realty Partners GP Inc.

Seller: SRF3 215 Chain Lake Drive Inc.

11

VIda/TGA Properties

$18.6 million

Date: March 7, 2022

87 Pinecrest Drive, Dartmouth

2 Franklyn Court, Dartmouth

4 Franklyn Court, Dartmouth

Buyer: Vida Living 2.0 Inc.

Seller: TGA Franklyn & Pinecrest Ltd.

12

1875 Barrington St., Halifax

$18.3 million

Date: November 16, 2022

Buyer: Historic Properties (Barrington Place) Ltd.

Seller: Crombie Developments Ltd.

13

44 Portland Street and 46 Portland Street, Dartmouth

$14.5 million

Date: July 15, 2022

Buyer: 46 Portland Developments Inc.

Seller: Principal Developments Inc.

14

Susie Lake Crescent, Halifax

$14.2 million

Date: January 5, 2022

Buyer: Dynamic Properties Co. Ltd.

Seller: Banc Developments Ltd.

15

Chain Lake Drive, Halifax

$13.3 million

Date: August 30, 2022

Buyer: HPB Bayers GP Inc.

Seller: Banc Developments Ltd.

16

210 Chain Lake Drive, Halifax

$13 million

Date: June 17, 2022

Buyer: CP Reit NS Properties Ltd.

Seller: Loblaw Properties Ltd.

17

558 Glen Allan Drive, Bridgewater

$12 million

Date: July 28, 2022

Buyer: Rosedale Investments Ltd.

Seller: 3329662 Nova Scotia Ltd.

18

29 Dugger McNeil Drive, Halifax

$11.8 million

Date: August 4, 2022

Buyer: HCI IV 29 Dugger McNeil Drive Inc.

Seller: Banc Developments Ltd.

19

38 Rooksview Lane, Bedford

$11.6 million

Date: April 14, 2022

Buyer: The Rooks of West Bedford GP Ltd.

Seller: West Bedford Holdings Ltd.

20

386 Waste Management Road, District of Guysborough

$10 million

Date: September 1, 2022

Buyer: GFL Environmental Inc.

Seller: Municipality of the District of Guysborough

HBB recognizes that Google Maps provided links for this article.

Readers wishing to know the officers and directors of the above corporations will find this information by entering the company name at https://rjsc.novascotia.ca/ and looking under the heading "Relationships."

--HBB