Businesses prepare for five more months of construction in Vanier

 

For the fourth straight summer, construction will reduce lanes on Montreal Road in Vanier, and businesses struggling though the pandemic are looking forward to this project coming to an end.

Drew Dobson owns Finnigan’s Pub, right in the middle of the construction on Montreal Road.

“The last two years have been very challenging, to say the least,” says Dobson. “Just coming off the pandemic, we were all optimistic and excited about the future. We could see our business coming back. And now we’re going to close the street for another five months and we’re nervous. We’re nervous that it’s going to dissuade people from coming here.”

His main concern, patio season.

"We rely on our patio," says Dobson. "We have a large patio and we’re concerned that the dust and the noise and the one way traffic is going to bite into that business." 

Starting Sunday, Montreal Road will be reduced to a single westbound lane from the Vanier Parkway to St. Laurent Boulevard until mid-September for watermain and sewer work.

A look at the construction zone on Montreal Road in the summer of 2022.

"It’s one of our largest street projects right now at the city," Coun. Mathieu Fleury said.

“It’s all to revitalize Vanier’s main street, including burying hydro lines and adding streetscaping features along both sides of the road.

“As we head into the fall, the majority of curbs, the majority of lighting, we’re going to start to see some of the final landscaping features take shape."

However, until the work is complete, businesses like Quelque Chose, who is also in the heart of the construction, have to deal with it the best they can.

"The thing is that we depend on our customers,” says Quelque Chose co-owner David Seba. “And if they find it hard to come here, they will go somewhere else.” 

Seba says dealing with both the pandemic and construction at the same time has been extremely tough on his business.

“If they were not one on top of the other it would have been more manageable,” says Seba. “But it’s all happening at the same time. So pandemic plus construction, it’s really hard.”

A look at the design for a section of Montreal Road. (Photo courtesy: City of Ottawa)

Once construction is complete, business owners in the area are hoping the redevelopment means a bright future for years to come.

“We’ll be super excited when it’s over,” says Dobson. “And hopefully we’ll have a street that will draw business, and draw customers. And revitalize this stretch of the main street.”