A local developer is converting a downtown Halifax office tower into a rental apartment building.

Elliot MacNeil, Sidewalk Real Estate Development’s president, told CBC that 12 of the Centennial building’s 14 floors are mostly gutted and crews will turn the spaces into one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.

Sidewalk acquired the 56-year-old building in 2021. According to the company’s website, the mid-century-designed property was one of Halifax’s first high-rise buildings.

But the Centennial was more than 40% vacant when Sidewalk purchased it. Sidewalk is waiting for leases to expire before redeveloping the remaining two floors.

MacNeil told CBC that Sidewalk has applied for federal, provincial and municipal affordable-housing grants but terms have not been finalized.

He called for the Halifax Regional Municipality to introduce an office-to-residential conversion program like a paused one in Calgary that subsidizes office redevelopments. The Nova Scotia government has incentivized developers by lifting its sales tax on purpose-built apartment projects after the federal govern