‘It does affect us immensely’: Road work in St. Vital driving away foot traffic

A road revamp project in Winnipeg has drawn the ire of several business owners. Jon Hendricks reports.

A massive pavement renewal project on St. Anne’s Road is causing a headache for local businesses, who say construction is driving away foot traffic.

Noy Chanthaphonh’s family has been running Vanxai’s Restaurant on St. Anne’s for more than a decade.

“We love this area,” she said.

But the road work just outside the restaurant’s front door has led to a nearly empty dining room.

“A lot of our customers are a lot of older generations, and they have a harder time finding parking,” Chanthaphonh said. “So it does affect us immensely.”

The project stretches from Fermor Avenue to St. Mary’s Road. It’s expected to last 20 weeks, limiting traffic to a single lane in each direction.

As a result, businesses along the thoroughfare have lost all on-street parking.

“Construction from all directions. It’s really coming from every area right now,” said Elizabeth Giesbrecht, who works in the area.

“Pretty much daily, at least half of our clients and our practitioners on staff have to call in and say, ‘I will be quite a bit late.’”

Mandy Pepe, the executive director of the Old St. Vital BIZ, said the construction has caused a significant decline in foot traffic.

“It’s hard times right now. Everybody’s struggling, and the construction is not helping at all,” she said.

According to Pepe, while most business owners agree the construction is needed, many would have liked to see the project done in smaller sections. Others are calling for some sort of compensation from the city or a break in taxes due to the construction.

“It’s their livelihood, and if they can’t make money, how can they survive?”

In a written statement to CTV News, the city’s public works department said the city does not provide compensation to businesses affected by construction.

“We plan work as best we can in advance, but are also very willing to troubleshoot once work is underway if businesses have issues we did not anticipate or underestimated the impact of,” the statement reads.

The department said it does significant outreach and coordination with properties impacted by road construction. That includes sending a letter to area residents and businesses, asking them to contact the city with any concerns or special requests for access.

For Vanxai’s Restaurant, Chanthaphonh said the community has rallied.

“I find that even though we did decline in sales, there was an increase of new customers because they wanted to help out,” she said, noting take-out orders have increased as well.

“It was almost like the pandemic all over again. We survived that. Now I’m sure we could survive this.”

The St. Anne’s Road project is expected to wrap up in the fall.