As Covid Recovery Begins, Business Adapt To Massive Spring Garden Revitalization Project
HALIFAX — A street improvement project on Spring Garden Road has put large swaths of the street out of commission.
The road, one of the busiest in the city, is completely closed to traffic and sidewalks are temporarily narrowed as a project aimed at making the street more pedestrian-friendly continues.
For Covid-19-walloped businesses trying to get back on their feet, less traffic means less business — and that’s less than ideal.
However, many Spring Garden businesses say now might be the best time to do the work.
The Spring Garden project includes widening the sidewalks by nearly 50 percent, burying wires underground, as well as adding new seating, dozens of trees, hundreds of flowers, and six pieces of public art.
Sue Uteck, the executive director of the Spring Garden Area Business Association, says the bulk of the construction could be done by the end of November. That means a few more months of narrow, crowded sidewalks and limited vehicle access.
Bruce Keys is the manager at Your Father’s Moustache, a popular Spring Garden restaurant. He says with no cruise ships and few visitors coming to Halifax, his business is already suffering. So why not just get the work over with now?
“It’s unfortunate this work is happening now. But at the same time, I don’t have any tourists,” Keys says.
“The thought [for a lot of us was] let’s tear the band-aid off. We’re not going to have a great year coming out of a pandemic, anyways, and there are no tourists, so let’s do it now,” he adds.
“It wouldn’t matter right now, honestly, if it was a construction project or not, I firmly believe it,” Uteck adds. “Businesses is down at the restaurants [and] it’s not due to this project. It’s due to the confidence category. Some people are still not comfortable.”
While Keys is glad to be getting construction out of the way while traffic is still low, the project means lots of headaches for businesses like his as the water gets shut off or construction causes unplanned interruptions.
“These inconveniences keep coming in. I’m a restaurant with a porta-potty parked right out in front of my restaurant,” he says.
Even though business is down and construction is causing headaches on Spring Garden Road, Uteck says the overall health of the area remains strong.
While many larger chain stores like David’s Tea and The Body Shop closed during the pandemic, several new businesses opened.
In fact, Uteck says Spring Garden is actually at a net positive in terms of its business numbers: more have opened than closed over the past two years.
“We’re on a net gain; we’ve definitely bucked the trend,” she says.
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