Business owners along Calgary’s 17 Avenue have been struggling with the challenge of getting customers through the door amidst a massive construction project for a while, but now they’ve been told work will take a little longer to complete.
The city says a miscalculation with the tree watering systems, trenches and underground pockets of soil put in place to aid in tree growth, is to blame for the delay.
Workers, while digging in the summer, found that the high number of buried utility lines didn’t leave enough space to allow for the systems.
The delay is frustrating business owners, who held a public meeting about the construction project on Wednesday at the Trolley 5 Pub.
They are also taking issue with the city’s construction methods. Originally, officials said that just two blocks of road would be closed for construction at a time but entrepreneurs say that they’ve seen up to six blocks closed at a time.
Ernie Tsu, owner of Trolley 5, says the situation has become so bad that it needs to be addressed in the civic election.
“The residents should care. The whole city should care. 17 Avenue has always been the vibrant avenue leading into the Saddledome. It’s a major avenue in our city and to have more entrepreneurs lose their businesses that are supplying jobs in this economy right now, yes, it’s a big issue.”
The completion date for the 17 Avenue project this year has now been pushed to mid-November. The schedule for the second phase, planned for next year, is still being worked out.
