Construction impacting local businesses

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• Historic Fort York David Spittal courtesy murmur.com
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A coalition of local business owners is taking the City of Toronto to court over concerns that the $25 million Bloor Street Transformation Project will cause casualties among local shops.

The coalition, dubbed Concerned About Bloor, has hired prominent lawyer Clayton Ruby to help move the case forward and make their concerns heard.

The Bloor Street Transformation Project will include the widening of sidewalks, tree planting and granite sidewalks, with construction taking place along Bloor Street from Church Street to Avenue Road. Construction began on the east end of the stretch of Bloor in July and is expected to move west along Bloor to Avenue through 2010.

At issue are the group's claims that they were not properly consulted on the project, that no environmental assessment was done and that construction on the project, which has been underway since July, has already negatively affected some businesses and will impact more as the project moves west.

Ruby said the construction, for which large blue fences have been erected along parts of Bloor Street to make way for work crews, has already impacted some businesses.

"This is a project that's going to last two years, and some businesses are in danger of going bankrupt," he said.

Ruby added the loss of parking along Bloor Street exacerbated the problem. He suggested that each parking space along the stretch of Bloor led to as much as $120,000 in revenue for Bloor-Yorkville businesses every day.

He said some store owners would like to see construction take place during off hours and for work crews to stop work around the Christmas season, the most important time of the year for many retailers.

"In major community centres like Bloor, you don't do construction during the day," he said. "And Christmas is when (retailers) make or break their yearly profit or loss."

Some retailers expressed concerns alongside Ruby at a press conference at Bloor and Church streets on Wednesday, Aug. 13. Marques Salama of Cultures restaurant said his revenues had dropped by as much as 40 per cent since construction began, with the blue fences impacting in-store business, the catering side of his business and deliveries.

"There are usually 100 taxis that stop in front of the store every day and if each one just stops in for a coffee, that's $100 right there," he said, adding that construction barriers appeared to deter walk-in customers as well.

Salama said he was not properly notified of the scope of the project beforehand, and therefore did not know how much the work would impact his business.

"I had no idea of the magnitude of the construction until I came one morning and saw all these blue fences," he said.

Fellow Bloor Street retailer Josh Josephson of Josephson Opticians said he was similarly taken aback by the construction, noting he was concerned with an apparent lack of proper studies undertaken by the city.

"I'm very concerned about the potential impact of the restriction of traffic flow," he said.

Josephson added he did not feel the city commissioned enough studies to determine what impact the construction would have. He said he was told the city wanted to see what impact construction would have by monitoring the situation after construction started.

"That strikes me as completely crazy," he said.

Ruby said he was open to talking with both the City of Toronto and the Bloor-Yorkville BIA to reach a resolution but acknowledged that a court date - possibly in October - was the most likely outcome. He said attempts to contact the BIA to express his clients' concerns had been unsuccessful to date.

"The BIA is mostly MIA (missing in action)," he said.

Bloor-Yorkville BIA Chair Doug Jure said Concerned About Bloor's members were given ample opportunity to make their concerns heard, noting the Bloor Street Transformation Project had been a hot topic of discussion in the organization's newsletters and at BIA meetings for years.

"Communication with our membership (over the issue) has been going on for some 10 years," he said. "If there was a problem with respect to deliveries and access, we dealt with those."

Jure said that as the project moves west along Bloor, BIA staff would meet with each business owner along the strip to ensure the impact on local retailers was as minor as possible.

"We have to treat each case individually," he said. "We're making concessions but we're trying to make (the construction process) as efficient and cost-effective as possible."