Expect massive road disruptions to Huntsville’s Main Street beginning next spring.
Huntsville councillors had a tough decision before them at their remote council meeting on Monday night. First up on the agenda was whether to proceed with the Main Street reconstruction project, as scheduled for the spring of 2021, and the impact it could have.
Councillors debated at length the impact road closure, coupled with COVID-19 restrictions, would have on Main Street businesses, fearing that some could close their doors permanently.
Representatives from the Downtown Huntsville BIA were also present and noted that during a survey of their members a small majority of those who responded were in favour of proceeding with the project as scheduled, with a start date of spring 2021.
Steve Hernen, director of operations and protective services for the Town, told council that a similar survey was conducted by municipal staff. The survey was open to all members of the public and, although unconfirmed, 73 per cent of the 59 people who responded said they were a Main St. business owner, and 66 per cent of those who responded indicated that they want the project to begin in 2021 at an accelerated schedule.
An accelerated schedule essentially means greater disruption for a shorter period of time with an anticipated spring 2021 start date and and end date of May 30, 2022.
But Councillor Tim Withey said the majority of the business owners he had surveyed wanted the project pushed further into the future. He said the response was divided. There were those who thought they could withstand further disruptions and those who said they are on the brink of closing their doors for good.
“To rip up Main Street next summer with the businesses that are really suffering now, they’re going to be closed, they’re going to be gone and, as I said, that’s where the lines are drawn,” he said, adding that he would not be supporting a project start of 2021 and asked for a recorded vote.
“The businesses that are struggling right now won’t be around to benefit from the beautiful streetscape in 2022. To me, we’ve got to give them time,” said Withey, pointing at the disruption on King William Street.
“This is one of the most difficult decisions I think I’ve been part of since being on council,” said Deputy Mayor Nancy Alcock.
She said she’s heard from business owners on both sides of the issue. “It could be equally slow next year from a COVID perspective but that would mean that the following year it could be wide open and hopefully a market that comes back 100 per cent,” said Alcock, adding that the disruption could be even worse if there are disruptions on Main Street when things start going back to normal. She said she hoped the municipality could put some sort of mechanism in place to monitor how the businesses are doing.
Hernen reminded council that infrastructure such as water and sewer mains and streetlights have run their course and could fail at any time, causing further disruptions and costing even more money. “Could it last another year without a break? Nobody knows. Maybe you’ll get two years, maybe you get three years, maybe by tomorrow morning we’ll be into a major issue,” he said, adding that based on what’s been seen on underground cameras the infrastructure has reached its useful life.
“It’s paramount that everyone know that we do want every business to thrive on Main Street,” said Councillor Jason FitzGerald. “I think we have to remember that there’s constantly a turnover of businesses on Main Street. Some that have closed down due to COVID, unfortunately maybe they would have closed down if COVID didn’t happen.”
FitzGerald said there is more access to Main Street than there is to King William Street. “I’m assuming at any given time you may have to walk two blocks. We have way more options for people to walk and access pedestrian traffic on Main Street.”
FitzGerald also asked if there would ever be a time during the reconstruction when there wouldn’t be one lane open to vehicular traffic.
Hernen said there would be. “When we’re doing block-by-block construction, vehicle traffic is shut down,” he noted.
There will be times when there’ll be no vehicles. So when they do the Main Street bridge refurb, from Brunel to the Main Street bridge, that section of road will be shut down for approximately two-and-a-half months and then as they move forward, as they catch up with their pipe-laying work, that section of road from Burnel to West will then be shut down for vehicle traffic for approximately two months as they progress through it.
— Director of operations and protective services, Steve Hernen
Hernen said detours will be set up and as reconstruction progresses up the road, beginning at the bridge, the completed sections will reopen, and then paving will take place from one end of Main Street to the other.
Mayor Karin Terziano said she had a discussion with Councillor Bob Stone, who sits as municipal representative on the board of the BIA. “We were having a discussion earlier today and talking about if this resolution goes through tonight, about getting a plan in place to how we can best mitigate the impact on the downtown core and businesses and we’ll start working on that as soon as we make a decision,” she told council. “Not because we care about the downtown core any more than King William but because we learned a lot from King William. We learned how impactful the construction was to those businesses. We probably learned too late to be able to do as much as we would like to do.”
Terziano told council that once their decision is made, “we will start to put whatever measure in place that we can and working towards making it as painless as possible. We know that it’s going to be tough, but we know it’s got to happen.”
In the end, the majority of council voted in favour of starting the Main Street project in the spring of 2021, with Withey voting against it. Councillor Jonathan Wiebe was not at the meeting.
You can find staff’s report here.
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Karen Reijnen says
Too bad more of the council members don’t think like Tim Withey.
Shame on Jason Fitzgerald for saying there is a constant turnover of businesses. What does this mean? It means that it isn’t too easy to survive as a business downtown.
Especially with box stores on the perimeter.
There are many challenges they face to compete. Especially when they have lots of parking and downtown is limited.
Our business was downtown for 30 years and still is. But this may just be the breaking point after this virus.
Karen Towler says
With COvid 19 hurting businesses in Huntsville can we not wait to do more road construction for a tear or two.
Cory Clarke says
I couldn’t disagree more with councils decision to proceed with the main street project in the spring. In my opinion it shows a total lack of consideration and compassion for the businesses on Main Street.
I own and operate a business where the King William Street construction has taken place and that project ran far past the completion date and is still ongoing. The project has had a devastating affect on the businesses in that location, even without COVID. Factor COVID into the equation and you begin to see a very bleak picture. This will repeat on Main Street. King William had started before COVID, but Council had the choice to give businesses the gift of time and a chance to recover by putting off Main Street. Unbelievably only one councillor voted against proceeding.
The mayor says that Council has learned from the King William Street project, and yet I only had one conversation with a councillor who reached out to me before the vote to proceed to see how construction had affected our business. Would it not have be wise for councillors to speak to the businesses on King William that just went through major construction to get their opinion on the affects of construction during COVID? How could they have learned anything unless speaking to King William business owners?
Director Hernen is correct in saying the infrastructure is past it’s best before date. It could fail today, tomorrow or 2 years from now. If the project was put off the worst case would be that main street would need closed while short term repairs were done if something failed. Far better to have main street closed for days/weeks rather than months to a year or likely longer.
Councillor Fitzgeralds comments about businesses turning over all the time on the main street regardless of the situation in question shows a total lack of empathy, wisdom, and consideration towards main street businesses. I would remind Councillor Fitzgerald and the other members of council that there can be, and quite possibly should be a turnover of this council when election time comes around. I wonder if the main street will even be completed by that time??
Cory Clarke
One Stop General Store
4 King William Street
Will Moore says
Tim Withey certainly seems to be in tune with the community and, as such, I would hope he considers a run at the Mayor’s chair for the next election. We need a Mayor and Council that are engaged and can consider impacts of decisions that they make on the community as a whole and on a wide variety of stakeholders.
I did notice that the article makes no mention as to any mitigation measures to be taken in order for those among the electorate who have accessibility/ mobility challenges and how they might access the downtown businesses during this upheaval ? It is already awful to try and park and get around downtown; as is. There are not enough Accessible Parking space right now.
Oh well. I guess, as Mr. Fitzgerald put it, you will only have to walk 2 blocks. However, those 2 blocks will quickly become 3 etc.
I suppose that is okay … if you can walk, that is.
Ralph Cliffe says
I hope I am wrong, but I can see many friends working in the stores on main street
applying for unemployment insurance this time next year.
Construction could have waited until 2022. Give the business time to recover.
Britt Stevens says
Mayor Terziano, town council, the BIA and all the stores on main street thought long and hard about the timing for this project. Over the past two years countless meetings and discussions took place that were open to anyone that wanted to attend. The current pandemic made this an even harder decision.
All retail stores and landlords were asked to vote. In fact we were reminded to vote several times to make sure all were included. Council listened and made the right decision. Thank you.
Britt Stevens (Big Bear)
Tim Withey says
Mr. Stevens, I personally did my own survey and found that only 44% of your neighbours, including landlords, supported starting this project next year. Many, in fact, requested that the project be pushed past 2022. Moreover, the split between the 2021 and the 2022 or beyond was pretty much drawn between those that haven’t been affected as much by the pandemic, and those that were.
And for your information, I didn’t just send out a questionnaire with options to pick from, I had extended conversations with the people I contacted.
We are in stage 3 of reopening now, so there is some business in town. Next summer we could still be in stage 3, as many are predicting, so to pile on with construction as well could make it tough for some to get through.
I also spoke to businesses on King William Street who are enduring the construction over there during these challenging times for their opinion of this situation.
I reported all of this information at the council meeting last Monday evening.
So it seems the folks who have suffered the most this season will have a more challenging year next year.
Of course I am comfortable with the democratic process and the fact that my colleagues chose differently than me. I only wish that I could have been more convincing in my argument.
I am very worried about the consequences of this vote for our Main Street merchants.
Rob Millman says
Quite frankly, I do not understand why this decision is within the Town’s purview in the first place. The streetscaping project originated because the District of Muskoka was going to be undertaking significant underground works. It seemed prudent, therefore, to proceed with the project coincident with the excavation of most of the asphalt and sidewalk.
As Main St. is District Road 3, why are they downloading their responsibility to Huntsville Council?