Construction on the Downtown Loop project is set to begin later this year. The project will be completed in phases with work starting on King street in April. Jennie Dann is the Director of Major Projects for the City of London and she outlined what to expect from the first phase.
“We’re going to be working to try to stage construction within each of those phases to maintain access as much as possible. For King Street, we have four blocks this first year. The first two blocks from Ridout to Richmond mostly involves surface work.”
The city hopes to maintain at least one lane of traffic while construction is going on. Dann explained that some phases will require more work than others.
“The other two blocks that are from Richmond to Wellington have some deep sewer work, we still have like an 1853 combined sewer that’s quite deep. So that’s a lot more disruptive. In that case, we’re breaking it down into sub-stages.”
This isn’t the first time King street has been under construction. Co-owner of Zenza Pizzaria Jocelyn DeGroot talked about the effect past construction has had on her business.
“We took a little bit of a hit on things when they did construction on King Street originally. That was a frustrating point for ourselves and a lot of other local businesses. We do know that there’s more construction coming up in the spring. At this point, we don’t even know what the impact that will have on us.” DeGroot does anticipate challenges when construction gets underway.
Businesses on King have been greatly affected by a combination of the pandemic and construction. With many of the businesses being forced to shut down.
“We’re the only restaurant currently open on this block. We know of at least three restaurants that have gone out of business due to a number of factors. But COVID and construction are definitely some of them.”
With construction expected to start the first week of April DeGroot is thankful for the support her business has received.
“We’re really, really grateful for the people who still do come downtown and support the downtown businesses that that’s, you know, what has kept us all going.”
For more information on the Downtown, Loop you can go to the Cities website. https://getinvolved.london.ca/downtownloop
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