‘Very frustrated’: Downtown business says construction is costing owners

Businesses in downtown Edmonton that have been surrounded by construction are hoping a new city council will ease some of their woes.

One man working in the downtown core says he and others in the area are feeling the costs of ongoing construction on business.

Tim Moffitt works as a pedorthist with Custom Orthopedic store on 102 Avenue. He told CTV News Edmonton that he and other workers in businesses around 102 Avenue and 105 Street have been losing customers to ongoing traffic projects.

“We’ve had a number of patients call us saying, ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t get in there, we’re not coming today,’” he said on Friday. “So we’re losing business just because of the traffic situation.”

There are a few construction projects active in the area, most significantly the Valley Line LRT drainage work being done by the city and a private construction project on the Coast Hotel.

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Just this week, 102 Avenue switched from a one-way street on one side of the road to the opposite side. Along Jasper Avenue, 105 Street northbound goes down to one lane.

106 Street, in turn, is also closed between Jasper Avenue and 102 Avenue, which is only open to eastbound traffic.

Along Custom Orthopedics, customers are only able to access the parking lot through what Moffitt says are confusing barricades along 106 Street.

What Moffitt says he and other workers in the area want is greater transparency about projects and their run times, better directions and compensation for those losing customers.

“We’ve asked (the city) to put up signage to help us, to put new traffic signs to direct people … we pay our taxes and we expect a little bit of help for this kind of stuff,” he said.

Ward O-day’min Coun. Anne Stevenson says she can appreciate how frustrating traffic can get between private and city-run projects that may not always stay on course.

Compensation for businesses affected by multi-year construction projects, she added, is something current Mayor Andrew Knack motioned for “for many years” during his time as councillor.

“That’s something I’m very supportive of. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet been able to get majority support of council to do that,” she told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “But I hope it’s something that we can revisit moving forward.”

In the meantime, Stevenson said there are always ways to try to minimize disruption in the downtown core, at least with projects the city is sponsoring.

“I think what we’ve seen on the Valley Line accelerated timeline has been really positive. It’s been more intense closures but for much shorter durations … just get in, get out and do this work as quickly as possible,” she said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Evan Kenny