The streets of downtown London have been under construction for what seems like forever. With roadways being stripped to the ground and teeming with orange-clad workers, it can have an impact on business.
“Last week was my worst week in five or six years… and that includes February,” said Marvin Post, the owner of Attic Books on Dundas street where the bulk of the work is happening right now.
Post has owned businesses in London since the 70s, moving around the city. He saw some minor projects being done when he opened Attic Books’ current location in 1996. Other than that, construction has been kept to a minimum.
Construction workers have been working on Dundas east of Richmond where Attic Books is located
The extended gap between major construction projects led to multiple tasks needing to be done in the recent bout. The construction of Dundas Place broke ground in 2016, renovating Dundas street West of Richmond. “It’s a beautiful, flat floor. Nothing’s in the way now. When you have a special event you don’t have to worry about tripping over a curb,” said Jim Yanchula, the Manager of Downtown Projects and Business Relations for the City of London. “65 percent of the construction is underground, 35% of it is above ground”
Yanchula says that the current project is long overdue. “For 30 years if you lived here, you lived a whole generation and always got through downtown because no work was happening, but it needed to be.” The current project includes providing brand new sewer infrastructure in the downtown core. “There’s sewers that can’t hold the capacity of having new apartment towers go up and everybody have dishwashers, and toilets and washing machines and use the old 19th-century sewer system when buildings were three stories high.”
With the project being a long time coming, there was ample time to warn the business owners that construction was going to happen. The issue, however, was keeping store owners up to date. “[The city] said they were going to give us frequent updates which have not been up to snuff,” said Post, who also experiences occasional internet blackouts as a result of the work being done.
The reason it’s difficult to keep everyone in the loop is because of the scale of the project. “We’ve certainly heard from the businesses when they’re interrupted without notice – we always try to give them notice,” Yanchula explains. “That can be challenging because contractors and subcontractors and telecommunication providers in the downtown area and they have to let us know what they’re doing for us to be able to let the businesses adjacent know that the work is coming.”
The interior of Attic Books, which has been located on Dundas st. since 1996. They also offer online sales
For Post and Attic Books though, he remains positive throughout the project. “Some days it’s tough but you have to be positive. It will be nicer when it’s done, I’m really looking forward to the new streetscape.” Post says that he hasn’t run any marketing strategies while the project is going on. Rather, he plans on getting the word out about his business after the construction is completed.
The hope for Yanchula and the city is that this will be the last major downtown project for a long time. “If you’re making these kinds of private sector investments in your downtown, you want to make sure that they’re equipped and ready to go and they can live more than 30 years – it could be like, a hundred years.”
