A giant construction zone that’s been causing a major disruption in the area of 61 Avenue S.W. has some businesses worried about how the delayed project will affect their sales.
Construction of the 61 Avenue S.W. began back in May and is supposed to widen pedestrian walkways, improve lighting and repair underground infrastructure.
This past week, the disruption turned into an even bigger problem once the intersection at 1A Street was closed.
Business owners have been told that work won’t be finished until November or next spring at the latest.
It’s bad news for all of them, but even worse this time of year when they should be open for their best business.
The costume shop Chuckles has been operating in Calgary for 30 years.
Bernadette Fletcher, the owner of the store, says they are down about 60 to 80 percent in sales because of the construction.
“We’ve had four entrances and now we’re cut down to one. Our pedestrian traffic is almost zero because of the way it is set up.”
She says the work was supposed to be done on September 2.
“It doesn’t look like it now until probably next spring. All of us are feeling the pinch.”
Fletcher says October is the store’s month to succeed but she isn’t seeing that this time around.
“If we don’t get the traffic, we’re not sure what’s going to happen.”
She says there is a lot of frustration among customers, even the ones that come in regularly. “They shop local and they love to come to our store.”
“We’ve been running it for about 15 years and we’re pretty passionate. We just want it to keep going. We just love it so much,” Fletcher said.
Chuckles isn’t the only business that’s suffering because of a lack of foot traffic.
Bruce Martin, general manager at Community Natural Foods, says the construction project is making it very difficult for sales.
“It’s been costing us between $5,000 and $10,000 a day in sales losses,” he said.
Martin says the city has been working with them closely and understands the delays aren’t entirely their fault. “They’ve been surprised with what they found when they dug up the earth. The issue is an additional electrical line they have to relocate and that’s causing a delay.”
He says that because of the losses, they’ve had to cut back hours for their employees. “Fortunately, we have two other stores in the city so we’ve been able to relocate our employees there. We’re lucky because we’re a bit of a destination shop and our customers are pretty loyal.”
Despite his customers being loyal, he is still disappointed with how long the work is taking to complete. “It’s just difficult to get in and out and shopping today is about convenience, so they can’t be happy.”
Martin says the city has opened discussions about some sort of compensation that could be provided to businesses affected by the construction delay. “I don’t know what that’s going to look like. We haven’t made a presentation to them yet, but we have 60 days to do that. It may cost the city more money because of what’s happened here.”
He says that he is working hard to get customers through the door for Thanksgiving, their busiest grocery shopping day of the year.
“We’re hoping that customers show up. We’re giving them maps on how to come. It’s a really important time of business for us. We’ll see if the customers respond to that.”
