Similar scenes will return to Preston Street in the spring when the street undergoes more construction.
Now that a city council committee has decided to finish Preston Street’s rehabilitation project by the end of 2009, business owners along Little Italy’s main street have to start thinking about how to survive the summer ahead.
On Jan. 13, a city council’s planning and environment committee approved a plan to condense Preston Street’s makeover from three years to two, in order to save the many small businesses struggling to attract customers through dust, noise and heavy machinery.
Joe Cotroneo, owner of Pub Italia at the southern end of Preston Street, says he expects the summer of 2009 to be even worse than 2008, which saw several businesses close because heavy construction kept tourists away from the usually hopping area.
“I definitely won’t have a patio available this year in the prime patio season,” he says. Last year, he was able to keep his patio open most of the time, but he said dust and trucks made it difficult to attract customers.
But Cotroneo refuses to give in to the doom and gloom that seems to have settled with the dust along Preston Street.
“You can’t be negative about these things,” he says. “I’m going to keep my patio open as long as I can, because you can’t say, ‘oh it’s really bad, I’m going to close for lunch today’…to the public, you have to look like you’re open.”
The Preston Street rehabilitation project began in 2008 to fix the 110-year-old sewers and water mains that have been flooding Preston Street basements with water and sewage for years.
The construction was scheduled to continue every summer until 2010.
But with the city’s go ahead, the last chunk of work between Albert and Spruce streets will now be completed by the end of 2009.
Businesses along Preston have suffered enormously since the construction began in the spring of 2008, says Somerset Ward Councillor Diane Holmes. Several businesses went bankrupt and others have reported a 30-to 40-per-cent-drop in revenues, she explained. “This constant construction and the dust from some of this construction has been making life pretty unbearable,” she added. “So for both the business community and the residential community, it was very important to make sure this got done in two years rather than three.”
Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA, says she is “delighted” with the decision.
“It’s already been a tough year. Facing yet another year of construction was terrifying my membership,” she said.
Despite the good news, Cotroneo said he expects a 15-per-cent drop in business next summer.
But the pub owner says he is willing to stick it out for a good cause.
“You’ve got to look ahead and say, ‘what am I going to end up with here?'” he explained. “We’re not just going to have a new sewer twenty feet down that no one’s going to see. We’re going to have a really nice street.”
Mellor said businesses should still expect a small amount of landscaping construction in 2010, to put the finishing touches on a pedestrian-friendly street in the heart of Little Italy.
City council will make its decision about accelerating the project on Jan. 28.