Downtown stores and restaurants on Third Avenue have noticed a significant downturn in business since the city began a project to replace the water supply lines that run underneath the road.
The project began August 8 and is slated for completion sometime at the end of September.
That day can’t come soon enough for North 54 general manager and head chef Tyler Currie. He says business has dropped about 50 per cent since construction began. With Third Avenue closed to traffic for about two blocks, customers are unable to park in front of the restaurant.
“It’s running really slow, they told us they were going to be doing our water last Sunday, now they’ve pushed us off to next Sunday and I’m assuming we won’t have parking for another three or four weeks,” said Currie.
The sidewalks on the street remain open but Currie says people are reluctant to walk through the downtown because of the street people who frequent the area.
“Parking is the biggest problem, they’ll park somewhere close to Nancy O’s or White Goose and go there for lunch,” said Currie.
“No matter what, they had to do this. The (watermain) is from the 50s”
Among the businesses affected are Third Avenue Pharmacy, Karim Indian Cuisine Restaurant, Hospital Auxiliary Thrift Shop and Canadian Western Bank, as well as several stores west of Victoria Street in Victoria Square.
The area under construction is the entire block west to Vancouver Street and half the block east from Victoria Street to Brunswick Street.
Savers Optical owner Brenda Johnson said the city gave business at least two months warning street access would be restricted. Her business is down about 40 percent and the lack of parking is the biggest issue for her customers.
“Some people are giving up, kind of circling around and some are giving up because there’s not really anywhere else to park to get in here,” said Johnson.
“They were off to roaring start and did really good the first week,” she said. “They dug it up and replaced the pipes and filled it over and we thought, great, it’s not going to take two months, but they haven’t really been back.”
According to the city, work was slightly delayed this week to allow for bacteriological testing of the water. The city is also replacing copper water lines as close as possible to the affected properties and will replace all hydrants on the water line. A temporary hydrant was installed to allow testing and flushing and will be removed before the street is paved.
Blake McIntosh, the city’s director of civic operations, realizes what an inconvenience it is for the affected businesses but to prevent watermain breaks that happen occasionally during freeze-thaw cycles the city had no choice but to act on the project.
“It’s a tough one, we try to keep people in water but that infrastructure is probably 60 years old and it’s hard to keep band-aiding it,” said McIntosh. “They’re going to get new water, new services and then they’re going to have fresh pavement when it’s done, so it’s going to be good for them.”
Earth To Sky Cannabis supervisor Garnet Grenon figures his store has lost about 20 per cent of its business in August but many of his regular customers are walk-in clients who don’t require parking The store had to close the past two Sundays when the water supply was turned off and there were no washroom facilities for staff.
