Merchants along Peel St. are in a festive mood as five months of construction draw to a close.
They popped open bottles of champagne Wednesday to mark the re-opening of one block of the street
In June the city began tearing up Peel St. to replace century-old pipes.
Unfortunately the work took longer than expected, and is still not complete. While the stretch of Peel St. between de Maisonneuve Ave. and Ste. Catherine St. is now open, construction crews are still at work between de Maisonneuve and Sherbrooke St.
Alain Creton, director of the Peel St. Merchants' Assn. said his business lost about $500,000 because of five months of construction.
Paul Teboul of upscale men’s clothing store L’Uomo Montreal said his business also lost $250,000.
Creton hopes the city can convince construction crews to speed up their projects.
"They could work longer hours. Instead at least of closing at 4, to have maybe two teams, or maybe one team and a half to go until 9 o'clock, something like that. Or until 10 o'clock.”
On Peel St. construction crews eventually ended up working on weekends, and a second supervisor was appointed to the site in a bid to speed up the project.
For some, the pain was worse than lost sales alone.
“The contractor had forgot really to connect our draining system to the city main,” said Tony Elian of Giorgio Gruppo Roma, also an upscale men’s clothing store.
The water backed up into the shop, damaging the floor and furniture.
The work on the northern stretch of Peel St. is expected to wrap up next month.
The next major street to undergo construction in Montreal is Ste. Catherine St., with a two-kilometre stretch being revamped, from Bleury St. to Mansfield St.
That work will start in 2017.
Creton hopes the Peel St. construction work will be a lesson for the city.
“I hope that Peel St. is going to be an example of what not to do and to be more responsible for anything that could happen on any other streets,” he said.
