This stretch of Bank Street has sat untouched for two weeks, say local merchants.
Some merchants are crying foul over this summer’s reconstruction of the Bank Street corridor.
This year, the stretch from Somerset Street to Arlington Avenue has become an uneven, gravelly expanse that encroaches onto sidewalks in different ways every day, depending on where work needs to be done.
Businesses further south, near the Queensway, say they have been hit the hardest.
“Thirty to 40 per cent of our business is gone,” said Wilff Laham, who has co-run Ada’s Diner with his wife Ada since 1993 at the corner of Bank Street and Arlington Avenue.
“They hear construction and stay away,” Ada Laham added.
Wilff Laham says the city should be doing something to help small businesses. In completing the northern portions of Bank Street, the city has offered nothing in compensation to businesses, citing precedent-setting legal concerns.
“The repairs have to be done, no doubt about it,” he said, “But it makes a lot of sense to compensate people.”
Neighbour Sharon Fernandez says she agrees. Fernandez owns Tea & Ginseng, located just up the block from Ada’s. She says her business is down 50 to 60 per cent and that she is furious with the way the city has handled the construction.
“It’s unconscionable,” she said, “It’s all on the back of small business.”
Fernandez said she is barely covering her store’s rent and that she will vacate the lot at the end of September to move her operation online.
“I’m fed up with the city,” she said, “They are mis-leading rather than leading us.”
Both Fernandez and the Lahams say they don’t understand why the street in front of their stores has not been touched in two weeks, since the main watermain was installed. Fernandez said the city could be more committed by having crews working later in the day and by re-opening stretches such as the one in front of her store while work is being completed elsewhere.
Bank Street has been under construction since this spring.
The main sewers and watermains running down Bank Street have been installed, said Todd Penfound, a project manager with the City. He said private offshoots are in progress, with the stretch from Somerset Street to Gilmour Street already completed.
“They’re on their deadline,” said Penfound, despite the wet and at times severe weather.
Bad as it may be for Fernandez and the Lahams, some stores say they are worse off.
Ali Muhammad says the convenience store his brother owns at Bank Street and James Street is down almost 90 per cent in sales from the same time last year.
“I usually put an order in every two-to-three weeks,” he said, “I haven’t put an order in for three months.”
Many other stores had similar stories: Bao Dinh said his chipwagon is down 40 to 50 per cent, Vassili Netchaev said he has lost 80 per cent of his business at Hackett Shoemaker, the After Stonewall bookstore is down by 20 per cent according to owner David Rimmer and Don Lee’s flower store is looking at losses of up to 40 per cent since the construction began.
“I hope I will survive somehow,” said Netchaev.
Don Alfonso’s, a fixture on the corner of Bank Street and Gladstone Avenue for more than 25 years, closed last month. Other nearby restaurants such as the Bramasole Diner have not been as hard hit.
“It hasn’t really affected us much,” said Mary Ellis, who works at the diner as a waitress, “we’re mostly walk-by traffic.
“It just makes us cosier,” she added, referring to the green fence about two metres from the front door.
Other businesses, such as the Quizno’s at Bank Street and McLaren Street, are offering discounts in an effort to maintain customers. Regular subs can be had for $4.99, $2 less than normal.
Others, however, are bucking the trend.
“We’re up, by quite a bit,” said Robert Giacobbi, co-owner of Wilde’s, “It hasn’t hurt us at all.”
The James Street Pub is another success story.
Even though he says business is slow during the day, General Manager Chuck Lemieux says his business is up 25 per cent from last summer. His secret?
“We do everything, and everything we do we do it well,” he said.
Specialty shops such as Vistek and The Camera Trading Company say they haven’t been hurt at all. They say they rely on very loyal regular customers, for whom construction is not a deal-breaker.
“Nothing is going to stop them,” said Tom Steiner, owner of The Camera Trading Company.
A busy summer of construction in the city sees similarly massive reconstruction is happening on Preston Street and Wellington Street West, as well as parts of Somerset Street.
The primary purpose of the Bank Street work is to replace watermains that are almost 100 years old. In addition, the city is taking the opportunity to re-design the street with wider sidewalks, re-paved roads and street furniture unique to the area.
The city is aiming to “substantially complete construction by the end of November,” and to lay the final layer of asphalt by spring of next year.