By Stephanie Myles
Centretown’s main streets will be rebuilt as early as this summer after city council approved nearly $7 million of construction in this year’s budget.
Somerset, Metcalfe, Bank and Booth streets and Laurier Avenue will all see construction in the next few years.
“This is the first time that I can remember that we have the major roads all being either designed or constructed at the same time,” says Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes.
She says the city’s goal for this year is to begin design on the Metcalfe and Bank projects and construction on Somerset from Kent to O’Connor.
Somerset businesses have already set aside money to promote the street and avoid losing business, says Elie Gharib, chair of the Somerset Village BIA.
“We don’t want (construction) to be in the middle of the summer because the majority of our businesses on Somerset have patios,” says Gharib. “If the street is all (dug) down and full of dirt and stuff it will scare customers away.”
Businesses will have input into the details of the construction, says Richard Holder, the city’s project manager. He says the city will try to accommodate their needs while finishing the project as quickly as possible.
“A lot of people look at these projects and think they cause an amazing amount of disruption, but…it’s an opportunity for people to have an enhanced, streetscaped area near their businesses,” says Holder.
Bank Street businesses recognize this advantage, says Gerry LePage, the executive director of the Bank Street Promenade BIA.
He says it is piggybacking its own streetscaping plans on the city’s construction project.
“One has to look at the other side of the equation,” says LePage.
“A more attractive retail area with built-up residential nodes is going to mean better revenues for those businesses.”
Both LePage and Gharib say they know the work must be done.
The Bank Street reconstruction will run north from Lansdowne Park, where the last phase left off.
That project, in Old Ottawa South, lasted longer than expected and a number of businesses lost money because of fewer walk-in customers.
LePage says the city is doing a good job planning the next phase of construction to prevent such a disaster.
“Sometimes they have no control over the factors that affect the length of construction,” he says.
“There can be inclement weather, you can dredge down and find problems that you didn’t know exist.”
The city will do what it can to mitigate negative impact to businesses during construction, says Holder.
“There’s a lot of co-ordination in terms of the traffic management and the sequencing of the construction activities,” he says. “The physical work taking place in (the Centretown) area is not going to happen at once.”
Holmes says the city recognizes that major construction means customers can’t access businesses.
“It will be hard for them, but when the sewers and the water mains go we really have no choice,” she says.