With gaping holes dotting Notre-Dame St. West thanks to a year-long construction project, at least one business has gone under while other merchants say they’re hanging on by a thread.
Restaurateur Ted Dranias opened La Trattoria a year and a half ago at the corner of Guy St. A few months later, the construction started.
“I like the location so I took a gamble, but the gamble is working against me right now. My sales should be 30-40 per cent higher. I was planning a terrasse, I was planning a lunch crowd business. It couldn't happen,” he said.
Dranias said not only has his business suffered but he's also dealt with damages.
“They were drilling here -- the contractor that was here last year -- he was drilling with a jackhammer and all the glasses on our granite tables were dancing and falling,” he said.
Across the street at Café-Bistro La Bistrote, Dana Elsliger is trying to be zen, but admits it’s difficult.
“Month after month, year after year, my sales were increasing and now they've just steadily taken a nosedive in the opposite direction,” said Eslinger.
She says her most loyal customers still make it in, enough to keep her doors open, but has also had bad luck with construction crews.
“They broke my window here the day they were drilling up the sidewalk,” she said. “They also hit my signage outside and broke that and that took about a month to replace. It's been a nightmare for the last year.”
Some of the merchants are hoping the city might consider some form of compensation in order to help them stay afloat while they try to rebuild after the work is done.
“Say I've lost $100,000 in sales, I shouldn't have to pay taxes on the next 100,000 profit that I make. I think that's fair. They're not losing money they're just not making money on those taxes,” said Eslinger.
The city said it has no compensation plan for extended roadwork and points out neither does any other large North American city.
“Having said that, I've asked the services to look into when we do recuperate sums in virtue of penalty clauses. If there's a way to in fact reinvest those amounts locally for those stretches where there is work,” said Lionel Perez, the executive committee member in charge of infrastructure.
The city plans on fining the construction companies in question for blowing their original deadline, something Perez said was probably unavoidable anyway.
“The entrepreneur in question had a delay because the plans weren't exactly as indicated and the sewer system dated from the 1800s,” he said.
The work on Notre-Dame St. West should be completed by mid-July.
