Downtown Preston businesses struggle during construction

Numerous signs dotted Downtown Preston, featuring a cartoon construction worker informing people that King Street was still open for business during the construction. Despite the sign, local business were still finding mixed success amongst the dirt and excavators.

Businesses in the downtown core were well informed of the reconstruction project that would see half of King from Dover Street to Bishop Street torn up to replace the aging sewer lines, with phase two expected to start sometime in 2020.

Greg Durocher, President/CEO, Cambridge Chamber of Commerce says they have been working with the Preston BIA and done everything they can to keep business flowing through the downtown core. 

“You can still get to them, there's parking available in the core. Please don't forget about downtown Preston in spite of the dirt and the digging that's going on, the businesses are still up for serving anyway they possibly can,” he says. While parking on the main street wasn't an option; side streets and the Westminister/Queenston lot were still available with many shops opening up their backdoors for customers to enter.

“So I think they're working together very well with the region and the contractor and I haven't heard any significant concerns.”

Shirley Bauman, Owner of Etcetera, has been on King for the last 44 years. She says she's dealt with construction before so it doesn't bother her, but at this time it was “a little more intense.”

“In all the time, we've been here I never seen this kind of construction.” Bauman says. “We had two major streetscaping programs, one in '81 and one in '99.”

“Something that has to happened, I mean infrastructure has to be replaced and they've done everything to make it possible to keep business going.”

Her own business saw a small dip in walk in traffic, but for a long-standing business with a loyal customer base, she isn't perturbed. Shops like hers have been in the game for long enough that this just another blip in a long career. However, not everyone was in the same boat.

Kevin Quigg, Owner the Fiddle and Firkin Pub, has been facing some difficulties during this time, despite setting up shop 25 years ago. Lately, he had to cut back on costs, kept afloat by his regulars.

“I pick up more hours. Family pick up more hours, you know, less hours for the staff. We try to keep them busy as well, you know, and they're hurting.”

Quigg mentions how he hopes the city will compensate business owners like him for the lost of revenue. 

“It would definitely help out in the end … I might end up going for a loan to get through this.”

It seems like the restaurants and bakeries in the area were most affected, with many lacking of a back entrance and lost of walk-in foot traffic. For younger business starting out, the construction has been a curse.

Virtue Peake has spent the last two years building up Virtuous Kitchen that specialized in catering and meal planning on top of selling soups, sandwiches, and baked goods during lunch hours. They also sold a number of therapeutic diet meals as well.

She says everything was looking promising until construction started. It didn't help that construction crews made the unfortunate decision to park a metal bin right in front of her storefront. 

“Basically my storefront business has gone … to … nothing. Like it's maybe 25 dollars some days.”

“Right now I'm just in crisis management I guess, I've picked up a second job and I've been doing that and then coming here to do my meal planning and my catering when I need to.”

She says she was fully prepared for the construction, having made significant pushes for her catering and meal prep service to make up for lost of foot-traffic. She just didn't expect walk-ins to drop as much as they did. The Preston BIA did help organize a food crawl a few weeks back to push people to the restaurants, but while it was “still one day out of a two year project.”

According to Peake, her neighbour, Botanical Propaganda, ended up moving shop to St. Jacobs after seeing her customer base drop to almost nothing. 

Connor Blackmore, Owner of Sauce Boss, has only been in the area for about eight months and says he doesn't have much to compare his experience too, but remains optimistic. Whatever drop he had in customer walk-ins was made up by the construction crew dropping by for lunch. That being said, he wouldn't mind being compensated for putting up with the construction.

“Even if it's a little bit off the rent or a small cheque, just because, like you know, there were days where the water was shut off. Or days where they had to do the gas lines, you know, so obviously you're closed for lunch or, you know, a day.”