Pages finally turning on future of Halifax Memorial Library site

For many, it’s long overdue for the municipality to take action on the old Halifax Memorial Library site, which has sat vacant for 10 years.

In this year’s municipal budget, $100,000 was set aside for a consultant to determine how to move forward.

“This plan should have been in the works probably as soon as they decided they were going to build a new library. So we’re glad that they’re finally moving forward,” said Emma Lang, the executive director of the Nova Scotia Heritage Trust.

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The report by the consultant would go to council by summer 2026 and include preliminary planning, consultation and research.

For Lang, she wants to see the site preserved and turned into a community and interpretative space, especially since the library was built in the 1950s as a war memorial. The land was also a burial ground for the African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw communities.

“It commemorates the fact that we haven’t wanted to talk about it until recent years, that we hadn’t wanted touch on the fact that this is a site of burial for people who are often thrust aside by society. So having the building there really speaks to that,” said Lang.

She’s not alone in wanting to see the site’s complicated historical value preserved.

“I consider it a big gravestones for everyone that’s buried there and is a war memorial,” said local historian, William Breckenridge.

For more on this story, watch the video above.