Business owner Mario De Marinis says the Somerset Street Chinatown BIA is not effective.
Large power wires and pipes crisscross the gravel stretch that used to be the sidewalk outside the Somerset Travel Agency.
They disappear into large holes gouged out of the street and snake onto the opposite side of the road. The sounds of dump trucks and power tools can be heard in the offices of the travel company and scenes of construction can be seen from the windows.
Owner Mario De Marinis says his business has been around for 50 years, one of the oldest travel agencies in the province. But the past few months have been especially tough for the company. The reason, De Marinis says, is the failure of the city and the Somerset Street Chinatown BIA to deal with the area’s construction.
“The communication from the city has been dismal and the (BIA) board has been very inactive, especially during the construction,” he says.
De Marinis, however, can’t help but feel for those who have had it even worse since the construction started five months ago.
“In canvassing (local businesses), they’ve said they’ve lost upwards of 80 per cent of business,” he says. “Some of the newer restaurants I don’t think will make it through the winter.”
But businesses are now demanding answers from local BIA board members.
Owners of 29 businesses between Booth and Preston streets signed and presented an open letter to the BIA earlier this month. The letter criticizes the BIA board for failing to assist member businesses during construction.
The letter, which De Marinis presented to the BIA, says members have not been “heard from nor . . . seen,” during construction. It also questions why BIA members pay “exorbitant fees” when they are constantly dissatisfied with the BIA’s services.
The letter condemns the BIA for not having an executive director after the last person to hold the position resigned after only two months on the job.
De Marinis says the BIA is “rudderless” without someone to lead them.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes, a BIA board member, says she was not surprised at the letter or the challenges of area businesses.
“Any road reconstruction is difficult for the businesses that have to live through it,” says Holmes.
She said faulty maps of utilities have made construction crews fall behind and forced the city to close certain streets along Somerset to catch up.
Holmes acknowledges that there has been a communication breakdown between the BIA, the city and businesses during construction. She says this is because no local businesses have volunteered to be “block captains” or go-betweens for the contractor and businesses on construction matters.
“That’s a problem because the block captain does relay information back to the businesses on that block,” says Holmes.
She adds the contracter has been “really working to try and get the communication going.”
Dianna Ashworth, a communications liaison officer for Delcan, the company responsible for the roadwork, says very few business owners in the area have voiced concern until now.
“I feel like I’m very available to (businesses),” says Ashworth, “but honestly, they’ve asked very few questions since the project started.”
But De Marinis has questions now. For one, why are street signs declaring business as usual routinely being covered by bigger, bolder construction signs?
“At the beginning we’re all thinking big signs will go up telling people things are as usual,” says De Marinis, “but in front of (those signs) they stick . . . bigger signs saying the road is closed. Not even local traffic is welcome; it looks like a lunar landscape here.”
Holmes says Ashworth should have reported the business as usual markers had been covered and informed the BIA, adding block captains could have brought this to the board’s attention.
Ashworth says the placement of signs is out of her control.
“There are times when we move the signs, certain work gets done and then they get put back,” she says, “or there are times when people have kicked them over in the evening . . .They are repositioned in the morning . . . that stuff is checked daily.”
De Marinis is now asking Holmes to help businesses recuperate losses caused by miscommunication and inactivity as businesses in the area teeter on the brink of financial disaster.
Holmes says she is trying to find a way to take some of the financial pressure off the businesses.
“(The city) may have the ability to defer some of the taxes (for businesses),” says Holmes, “and that’s what I’m hoping I can get out of the finance department.”
As for a marketing plan, Ashworth says she has volunteered to work on one with the BIA.
For De Marinis it is not too late to save the businesses in Somerset’s Chinatown, but action from the city and the BIA board members is needed now.
“I told (the board), 'If you don’t get off your chairs now, there will be nothing left for you here afterwards.' ”