By Angela Brown

Downtown businesses feeling the pain of construction

Aug 30, 2017 | 2:30 PM

 A number of downtown businesses on 101 Street are voicing their concerns about lost sales as a result of the City of North Battleford’s construction work taking place over the summer. That work, aimed at replacing underground piping and beautification, has closed the road and sidewalks since around June. While the sidewalks reopened last week, the road project isn’t expected to be completed until October.

Twisted Inc. shop manager Sylvia McLean said the business, which sells street-wear fashions and assorted niche items, including vaping products for electronic cigarettes, had been hurting since the street upgrade work started in the summer.

McLean said business is “slow to nonexistent some days” since the upgrade construction started downtown. 

“Only about 50 per cent of the time do they actually seem to be out there working,” she added. “It’s like it’s closed for no reason most of the time. We’re very angry.”

Since the business is a tenant, she said they only found out about the construction project from the property owner in May. 

Plans in place

Construction begins on permanent Humboldt Broncos memorial site

10h ago

Big Win Over La Ronge

North Stars shine against the Ice Wolves

13h ago

Healthcare

'It's terrifying': Health-care workers sound alarm at Legislative Building

Oct 04, 2024

McLean said she has asked for some compensation for the business loss.

She estimated the business has lost about 80 per cent to 90 per cent of revenue from sales due to construction, based on the pre-summer numbers.

“We’re struggling to pay for orders made based on projections from the sales we had,” she said. “We’re just barely surviving.”

Twisted Inc. completed a new social media advertising campaign in the winter and was expecting a high volume of sales over the summer, since it had done so well up to now. It also has a large volume of summer product it hasn’t been able to sell.  

“The summer should have been our best ever,” said McLean. 

She said while businesses were encouraged to operate through their back doors during construction, since potential customers couldn’t access the front doors while the sidewalks were closed, she said this idea didn’t prove to be a good option.

For safety reasons, she said the business had to keep the door locked unless a customer knocked to enter the establishment. As well, the cash desk was situated in such a way that made it difficult to serve customers at the back, while still being able to ensure the business and inventory was secure.

“We put signage on the back of the building, but people told us they just assumed we closed; that’s why they haven’t come,” McLean said.

Shawn Gratton, owner of Second Chance Goods, on 101 Street, is also upset.

He said he tried leaving the back door open for people to enter when the sidewalk was closed, but had problems because of the amount of theft the store experienced.

“We couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. He said many customers didn’t know businesses were allowing access through their back door during construction. 

Gratton said he estimates he has lost about $1,500 to $1,800 on average per week in sales.

He said he is aware of other businesses downtown that have been asking the city for reimbursement for their losses.

Gratton added he has had to use money from his family’s account to cover expenses for the business.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “The city should have planned this out a lot better than what they did.”

City of North Battleford Mayor Ryan Bater said there are a number of factors businesses need to take into account related to the road and sidewalk closures that have impacted the downtown core.

He said the city isn’t able to compensate businesses for their losses.

The mayor said businesses should have known far in advance the project would be proceding this summer, to have time to prepare for it.

He added in most situations the downtown upgrade work including underground pipe replacement could have been charged to businesses as direct local business improvement costs. Instead, all N.B. ratepayers will be paying for the work as part of the city’s UPAR project upgrades.

He added as far as the extended time workers have taken to complete the project is concerned, that is contingent on what projects contracting firms have scheduled, and not within the city’s control unfortunately, so he hopes businesses can understand.

“We recognize that this would have been difficult for downtown businesses on the street where the work was being done, but the work was necessary,” said Bater. “The underground pipe work had been delayed for almost two decades and needed to be replaced. The above-ground work made sense to do it at the same time in order to have the least possible amount of disruption.” 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW