Halifax, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia gives away the money and withholds the names: every sale price in the province since July 2010, every assessed value for five years and the floor area of every commercial building are published in bulk under a licence that allows commercial reuse, but the ownership register, Property Online, has no pay-per-search option at all — the cheapest way in is $99.65 a month plus tax — and owner names are deliberately stripped out of the open files, so Halifax's $113.8-billion assessment roll can be read down to the parcel without ever learning who holds it.
8 buildings · 7 with an owner established · 29 sources · 6 tier A · 2 tier B · prepared 2026-10-03
Can you find out who owns it?
Nova Scotia splits the question in two and answers the halves in opposite directions. What a property is worth and what it last sold for are open: the Property Valuation Services Corporation runs a free public assessment search by address, by account number or by sale price and sale date, and its datazONE portal publishes province-wide bulk files — every sale since July 2010 with address, date and price, five years of assessed and taxable values, and the leasable area and year built of every commercial property — under a licence that expressly permits commercial reuse and redistribution. Who owns it is not open in the same way. The ownership register, Property Online, sells no single search and no trial: the base subscription is $99.65 a month plus tax including five hours of search time, then $19.93 an hour, and the only one-off alternative is to attend a Land Registration Office in person and pay $6.59 per person per half-day. Owner names are also deliberately absent from the open data — PVSC's own disclosure policy exempts personal information and anything that could identify an individual under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act — so the roll can be read down to the parcel without ever naming a holder.
Is ownership public?Public, but one paid search at a time
Cost of one title search$6.59 to search records at Land Registry, per person per half-day or any partial half-day; Property Online sells no one-time or trial search — base subscription $99.65 per month plus tax including 5 hours of search time, then $19.93 per hour plus tax. Neither the fee table nor the subscription page carries an effective date; both were read on 2026-10-03.
Bulk ownership dataNone published
Sale pricesEvery sale, with its address
Sites that forbid taking their data
- webapi.pvsc.ca — “Prohibited uses of PVSC information include: "Screen scraping", "database scraping" and any other activity intended to collect, store, reorganize or manipulate or publish data on the pages produced by, or displayed on the PVSC website”
- webapi.pvsc.ca — “This data is intended for private, non-commercial use by individuals. Any commercial use of this data in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, is specifically forbidden except with the prior written authority of the owner, and PVSC.”
- realtor.ca — “Not fetched for this record. Listing portals are excluded by policy and their aggregate indices are cited instead.”
1
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scotia Square 5201 Duke Street, Halifax over 1.2M sq ft across the complex; 194,724 sq ft of retail |
Mixed use | Crombie REIT Crombie's own property page states that Scotia Square 'consists of over 1.2M square feet of prime office and retail space, and includes Duke Tower, Barrington Tower, Cogswell Tower, Brunswick Place, and 1809 Barrington', and gives the retail component as 194,724 sq ft. Individually the towers are listed as Duke Tower 225,233 sq ft, 1809 Barrington 207,640 sq ft, Cogswell Tower 204,092 sq ft, Barrington Tower 185,916 sq ft and Brunswick Place 251,817 sq ft. The complex is the transit hub for downtown and is linked by pedway to the rest of the core. No price appears on the page and none was established. |
REIT | —A |
| Duke Tower, Scotia Square 5251 Duke Street, Halifax 225,233 sq ft (Crombie states 217,639 sq ft of leasable area) |
Office | Crombie REIT The largest single tower in the Scotia Square complex by Crombie's own figure. Crombie's page describes an on-site daycare, dedicated parking and direct connection to the Scotia Square concourse, and notes the complex holds a BOMA Canada TOBY award. The page gives two numbers — a total of 225,233 sq ft and a leasable area of 217,639 sq ft — and both are reproduced here as stated. |
REIT | —A |
| Maritime Centre 1505 Barrington Street, Halifax 529,269 sq ft (owner's figure); 561,705 sq ft of leasable area on the 2026 assessment roll |
Office | Ravelin Properties REIT (wholly owned by Clarke Inc., TSX: CKI) Ravelin's own property page gives the address as 1505 Barrington Street, the area as 529,269 sq ft and calls it 'the largest office property in Canada east of Montreal'. Ravelin was Slate Office REIT until 31 December 2024; on 29 May 2026 Clarke Inc. completed a plan of arrangement under which it came to hold 100% of the REIT's units, and the units were delisted from the TSX. Clarke's head office is 168 Hobsons Lake Drive, Halifax. PVSC's commercial characteristics file gives the building year as 1974 and total leasable area as 561,705 sq ft, and the 2026 roll assesses the account at $55,907,400 — the floor-area figures differ between owner and assessor and both are given. |
Public company | —B |
| Halifax Shopping Centre and Annex 7001 Mumford Road, Halifax more than 900,000 sq ft for the two properties; 541,019 sq ft of leasable area on the main account |
Retail | Primaris REIT Both halves of this are documented, which is unusual. CBC reported on 20 November 2023 that Primaris REIT had acquired the Halifax Shopping Centre and the Annex for $370 million, quoting chief executive Alex Avery, and recorded that the centre had been operated by Cushman & Wakefield Asset Services Inc. on behalf of OPB Realty Inc., a real-estate arm of the Ontario Pension Board. PVSC's open sales file independently shows a $370,000,000 transfer registered on 30 November 2023 across six parcels — 7001 Mumford Dr, 6954, 6980 and 7004 Mumford Rd, and 7095 and 7101 Chebucto Rd. The 2026 roll assesses the main account at $218,397,700, the second-highest in the city of Halifax; |
REIT | CAD $370,000,000 2023-11 Announced by Primaris on 20 November 2023; registered in the Nova Scotia sales record on 30 November 2023 as a six-parcel transaction at $370,000,000 A |
| Purdy's Wharf (Tower One, McInnes Cooper Tower and Purdy's Landing) 1949, 1959 and 1969 Upper Water Street, Halifax |
Office | GWL Realty Advisors Inc. Named as the landlord in its own release, but not as the beneficial owner. GWL Realty Advisors announced on 30 July 2020 that McInnes Cooper had extended its lease beyond 2030 and that the tower it occupies would be renamed 'McInnes Cooper Tower – Purdy's Wharf'; the release calls GWLRA 'landlord' and quotes its vice-president of asset management speaking 'on behalf of the ownership group'. GWLRA describes itself as a real-estate investment advisor offering asset and property management to pension funds and institutional clients, so the ownership group behind the complex is not identified and is not named here. No price was established. |
Institution | —B |
| Queen's Marque 1721–1735 Lower Water Street, Halifax over 450,000 sq ft across almost five acres |
Mixed use | Waterfront Development Corporation Ltd., now Build Nova Scotia (land) The land under Halifax's newest waterfront district is public. A Halifax Regional Council report of 13 June 2017 on the development agreement for 1721–1735 Lower Water Street records that 'The developer, The Armour Group Ltd. on behalf of the property owner, the Waterfront Development Corporation' applied for the amendment, and the agreement itself names Waterfront Development Corporation Ltd. as a party. The buildings are Armour's — the firm states it 'has not sold a developed asset in the Company's history' — but the tenure under which it holds them was not established from any document opened, so only the land owner is entered. |
Government | CAD almost $200 million 2016-05 stated as the scale of private investment in the district, not as a purchase price for land or buildings A |
| Nova Centre Argyle and Grafton Streets, Halifax one million sq ft |
Mixed use | Argyle Developments Inc. For more than 25 years, we have been in the business of developing, owning, and managing commercial, residential, and industrial properties in the Halifax Regional Municipality, and we currently own and manage 3 million square feet of mixed-use space.' The Halifax Convention Centre operating inside the complex is a separate public undertaking and no claim is made here about which accounts it sits on; the 2026 roll carries a Grafton Street account built in 2018 assessed at $165,887,000 and unchanged for five years, but with no owner name on the roll the parcel cannot be matched to a building from the open record alone, so it is reported as a roll entry and not as Nova Centre. |
Family / private | —A |
| 2887 Barrington Street industrial complex 2887 Barrington Street, Halifax 673,699 sq ft of buildings |
Industrial | Not established a paid title search would answer it This is the regime in one line. The largest privately assessed industrial complex on the Halifax peninsula — 673,699 square feet of buildings on a single account, built in 1960, assessed at $168,088,500 on the 2026 roll, the sixth-highest account in the municipality — and the open record does not say who owns it, because Nova Scotia's assessment data excludes owner names by policy and the ownership register sells no single search. Establishing the holder would cost $99.65 plus tax for a month of Property Online, or a half-day in a Land Registration Office at $6.59. PVSC's sales file records no transfer of the account since July 2010. |
Not established | —A |
2
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
Because Nova Scotia publishes the roll in bulk, the aggregate is a fact rather than an estimate. Every figure below was computed from PVSC's datazONE files on 3 October 2026 — the 2026 tax year of the assessed-value history, the whole sales history since July 2010, and the commercial building characteristics file. None of these files names an owner.
Total assessed value, Halifax Regional Municipality, 2026 roll$113.84 billion
Computed from PVSC datazONE 'Assessed Value and Taxable Assessed Value History' (bt58-qu28), tax_year 2026, municipal_unit 'HALIFAX REGIONAL MUNICIPALITY (HRM)': 172,718 accounts, $113,837,592,200 assessed, $88,527,007,100 taxable. Queried 2026-10-03.
Five-year change in the HRM roll+66%, from $68.51 billion (2022) to $113.84 billion (2026)
Same dataset, tax_year 2022: 167,980 accounts, $68,509,434,500 assessed. Account count rose 2.8% over the same five years, so almost all of the increase is revaluation rather than new supply.
Highest assessed account in HRM, 2026$410,288,700
95 Baldwin Dr, Goffs (AAN 01189417), PVSC datazONE. The roll carries no owner name and no description of use, so this record names none; establishing the holder would require a Property Online subscription.
Highest assessed account within the city of Halifax$230,740,900
2791 Admirals Way, Halifax (AAN 03385051). Second is 7001 Mumford Dr at $218,397,700 and third 6259 Alumni Cres at $175,325,100. PVSC datazONE, 2026 tax year.
Largest sale recorded in HRM since July 2010$370,000,000, registered 30 November 2023
PVSC datazONE 'Parcel Sales History' (6a95-ppg4): a six-parcel transaction covering 7001 Mumford Dr, 6954/6980/7004 Mumford Rd and 7095/7101 Chebucto Rd — the Halifax Shopping Centre and its Annex. The dataset states the price but not the parties.
Assessed value of the city of Halifax proper vs Dartmouth$43.28 billion (40,772 accounts) vs $19.83 billion (23,846 accounts)
PVSC datazONE, 2026 tax year, by address_city within HRM. The remaining $50.7 billion sits in Bedford, Sackville, the former county and the rural districts.
5
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
There is no builder league table for Atlantic Canada and no open per-city housing-starts series. Statistics Canada's CMHC starts cubes were queried directly through the Web Data Service: table 34-10-0143 ('centres 10,000 and over') carries 22 geographies and not one of them is a Nova Scotia or New Brunswick city, and table 34-10-0126 ('all areas, annual') stops at the province. What is citable at the city level is CMHC data reported second-hand and the builders' own statements. CBC, reporting CMHC figures, put more than 13,000 housing units under construction in Halifax as of October, with starts up 32 per cent over the first ten months of the year against under 5 per cent nationally, and 81 per cent of Halifax starts aimed at the rental market rather than ownership. That is the shape of the market: Halifax builds purpose-built rental, held long-term by local family firms and one REIT, not condominiums for sale.
| Name | Type | Units owned or delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Killam Apartment REIT Killam's Q2-2026 MD&A, as at 30 June 2026: Halifax is its largest market at 5,709 units in 67 properties, generating $37,165 thousand of net operating income or 28.8 per cent of the trust's total. Killam is Halifax-headquartered, holds a $5.6 billion portfolio across seven provinces and 18,091 apartment units in all, describes itself as 'Atlantic Canada's largest owner of multi-residential apartments', and has completed 20 development projects since 2010 with one — Eventide, 55 units — under construction in Halifax. Average two-bedroom rent in its Halifax portfolio is stated as $1,619, against $2,500 and above for most new supply. Occupancy 98.1 per cent. |
REIT | 5,709 apartment units across 67 properties in HalifaxA |
| Southwest Properties Southwest's own site states: 'With 2,062 quality apartments and condos for rent in Halifax, people have called Southwest Properties home for more than 65 years.' No ownership structure is published on the page and none is asserted here. |
Private company | 2,062 apartments and condominiums in HalifaxA |
| Argyle Developments Inc. Argyle's own statement on the Nova Centre site: owned by the Ramia family, more than 25 years developing, owning and managing commercial, residential and industrial property in HRM, currently owning and managing 3 million square feet. The group also acquired Mic Mac Mall in Dartmouth through Rank Inc. |
Family / private | 3 million sq ft of mixed-use space owned and managedA |
| The Armour Group Limited Armour describes itself as an integrated real estate development and construction firm headquartered at 1701 Hollis Street and states the defining fact about its holdings: 'We seek to establish destinations of enduring value and, in accordance with this belief, have not sold a developed asset in the Company's history.' It publishes no portfolio count, so the figure given is the one project for which an area is stated. |
Private company | over 450,000 sq ft at Queen's Marque; no portfolio total publishedA |
| Dexel Developments (Lawen Group) A guest submission published by Real Estate News Exchange on the Halifax multifamily market credits 'the recently completed Press Block, a restored heritage façade in Halifax topped with 138 rental units' to 'Dexel Developments, a Lawen Group company'. The same piece makes the structural point about the market: 'Most of the development and construction companies in Halifax are local families who have been building in this city for decades… They hold on to their assets long-term.' No portfolio total is published. |
Family / private | 138 rental units at the Press BlockB |
| United Gulf Developments Its own site states only that 'For more than 30 years, United Gulf has been shaping communities across Nova Scotia through residential, commercial, and mixed-use developments.' No units, floor area or project count appears on the page opened, so no figure is entered rather than one estimated. |
Private company | no unit count publishedA |
6
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
Halifax's office core is held by three listed vehicles and one family company, and two of the three are headquartered in the province. Crombie REIT holds the Scotia Square complex; Ravelin Properties REIT, now wholly owned by Halifax-based Clarke Inc., holds the single largest office building east of Montreal; Primaris REIT holds the dominant mall. Retail outside the core runs through Plaza Retail REIT of Fredericton and Crombie, both tied to grocery anchors.
| Name | Type | Floor area |
|---|---|---|
| Crombie REIT Crombie's property list, read on 3 October 2026, carries twenty HRM addresses: the Scotia Square complex (Scotia Square, Duke Tower, Barrington Tower, Cogswell Tower, Brunswick Place, 1809 Barrington / CIBC Building), Park West Centre and Annex (143,346 sq ft), Downsview Mall and Plaza, Mill Cove Plaza, Hemlock Square, North and Windsor, Queen Street Plaza, Spryfield, and in Dartmouth Penhorn Plaza and Annex, Primrose Plaza, Wyse Road Plaza, Russell Lake, Panavista and the Dartmouth Crossing Cineplex Cinemas. Crombie is headquartered in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. |
REIT | over 1.2M sq ft at Scotia Square alone; 20 properties listed in HRMA |
| Ravelin Properties REIT (Clarke Inc.) Maritime Centre at 1505 Barrington Street, which Ravelin calls the largest office property in Canada east of Montreal. Clarke Inc. (TSX: CKI), head office 168 Hobsons Lake Drive, Halifax, completed its acquisition of 100 per cent of the REIT's units on 29 May 2026 and the units were delisted. The same vehicle holds the largest office building in each of Saint John (Brunswick Square), Moncton (Blue Cross Centre) and Fredericton (King's Place), which makes one Halifax company the dominant office landlord in four of the region's five cities. |
Public company | 529,269 sq ft at Maritime Centre; 45 properties and 6.5M sq ft in the REIT at 31 December 2025A |
| Primaris REIT Acquired for $370 million, announced 20 November 2023 and registered 30 November 2023. CBC's report notes Primaris then owned 36 shopping malls in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and that it began as a property portfolio for the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System before becoming a publicly traded trust in 2022. |
REIT | more than 900,000 sq ft (Halifax Shopping Centre and Annex)A |
| GWL Realty Advisors Inc. Named as landlord of Purdy's Wharf in its own 2020 release, acting 'on behalf of the ownership group'; it describes itself as a Canadian real estate investment advisor providing asset management, property management and development to pension funds and institutional clients. The beneficial owners are not named in any record opened. |
Institution | three buildings at Purdy's WharfB |
| Killam Apartment REIT From the Q2-2026 MD&A portfolio summary, which also notes that the Nova Scotia square footage 'includes Killam's 50% ownership interest in two office properties', that the trust holds 983,380 sq ft of stand-alone commercial nationally plus 167,052 sq ft of ancillary commercial inside residential buildings, and that commercial is 4.5 per cent of net operating income. |
REIT | 214,154 sq ft of stand-alone commercial space in Nova Scotia across 6 propertiesA |
| Plaza Retail REIT Plaza's Q2-2026 financial report, at 30 June 2026: 189 properties and approximately 8.8 million sq ft in all, of which Nova Scotia is 27 properties and 1,219,981 sq ft and New Brunswick 44 properties and 1,967,840 sq ft. Plaza is headquartered in Fredericton and is fully internalised — it develops, leases, manages and finances in-house. |
REIT | 27 Nova Scotia properties, 1,219,981 sq ftA |
?
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- The owner of 95 Baldwin Drive, Goffs — the highest assessed account in the municipality at $410,288,700. The open roll names no owner and gives no description of use, and Property Online was not subscribed to.
- The owner of 2887 Barrington Street, the largest privately assessed industrial complex in the city at $168,088,500 and 673,699 sq ft of buildings. Same reason.
- Which assessment accounts make up the Nova Centre, and therefore its assessed value. A Grafton Street account built in 2018 is assessed at $165,887,000 and has not moved in five years, which is consistent with a negotiated or legislated assessment, but the roll carries no owner name and no building name, so no match was made.
- The tenure on which The Armour Group holds the Queen's Marque buildings over land owned by Build Nova Scotia. Reporting describes a 99-year lease awarded after a 2004 public call for concepts, but no lease, council report or Crown corporation page opened states the term, so it is not recorded.
- The beneficial owners of Purdy's Wharf. GWL Realty Advisors is named as landlord in its own release and speaks 'on behalf of the ownership group'; that group is not identified anywhere opened.
- Halifax housing starts and completions as an official per-city series. Statistics Canada's open CMHC cubes 34-10-0143 and 34-10-0126 were queried through the Web Data Service and neither carries a Nova Scotia city; the 13,000-units-under-construction figure is CMHC data as reported by CBC, not read from CMHC.
- Any link between a property holding and elected office in Halifax. Nothing was established and the record therefore carries none.
§
Sources
- Land Registry fees — Government of Nova Scotia · openA
- Subscribe to Property Online — Government of Nova Scotia, Department of Service Nova Scotia · openA
- Land and property — Government of Nova Scotia · openA
- Find An Assessment — assessment search options — Property Valuation Services Corporation · openA
- Data Disclosure — Access to PVSC Data — Property Valuation Services Corporation · openA
- PVSC Terms and Conditions — Property Valuation Services Corporation · openA
- Assessed Value and Taxable Assessed Value History; Parcel Sales History; Commercial Building Characteristics — Property Valuation Services Corporation — the datazONE · openA
- Parcel Sales History — address, GPS coordinates, sales date and sales price for all sales in Nova Scotia from July 2010 onwards — PVSC — the datazONE · openA
- Commercial Building Characteristics — PVSC — the datazONE · openA
- Open Data & Information Government Licence — PVSC & Participating Municipalities — Property Valuation Services Corporation · openA
- Our Properties; Scotia Square; Duke Tower; Barrington Tower; Cogswell Tower; Brunswick Place; 1809 Barrington; Park West Centre — Crombie REIT · openA
- About the Centre — Nova Centre / About Argyle Developments — Argyle Developments Inc. · openA
- Queen's Marque Project — Build Nova Scotia (provincial Crown corporation) · openA
- A Project “Born of This Place” — Queen's Marque launch release, 9 May 2016 — The Armour Group Limited and Waterfront Development · openA
- Case 20300: Development Agreement, 1721-1735 Lower Water Street, Halifax (Queen's Marque) — report to Regional Council, 13 June 2017 — Halifax Regional Municipality · openA
- Maritime Centre — property page — Ravelin Properties REIT · openA
- Clarke Inc. Completes Acquisition of Ravelin Properties REIT, 29 May 2026 — Clarke Inc. and Ravelin Properties REIT via Newsfile Corp. · openA
- Q2-2026 Management's Discussion and Analysis — Killam Apartment REIT · openA
- McInnes Cooper Commits at McInnes Cooper Tower – Purdy's Wharf, 30 July 2020 — GWL Realty Advisors Inc. · openA
- Purdy's Wharf – Purdy's Landing, Tower One and McInnes Cooper Tower — leasing listings — GWL Realty Advisors (gwlraleasing.com) · openA
- Halifax housing construction up significantly this year, with thousands of units underway — CBC News · openA
- Southwest Properties — home page — Southwest Properties · openA
- Our Firm / Our Work — The Armour Group Limited · openA
- Halifax mall acquired for $370 million by Toronto-based real estate investment company — CBC News · openA
- Q2 2026 Financial Report (interim MD&A and financial statements) — Plaza Retail REIT · openA
- About — United Gulf Developments — United Gulf Developments · openA
- How Halifax multifamily developers are rising to new challenges (guest submission) — Real Estate News Exchange (RENX) · openA
- About Irving Shipbuilding — Irving Shipbuilding Inc. · openA
- getCubeMetadata for tables 34-10-0143 and 34-10-0126 (CMHC housing starts, under construction and completions) — Statistics Canada Web Data Service · openA