There’s yet another round of construction happening in downtown Montreal and it has some business owners worried – like this owner of Brigade Pizzeria located on Stanley Street, who says he’s unsure whether he’ll will be able to survive this round of roadwork that’s closing off parts of Sainte-Catherine Street as well as Peel metro station – causing sales to drop to an all time low as his clientele has a harder time accessing his restaurant.
“They closed the exit on Stanley from the Metro Peel. So when a Bell Center show, people used to come by Stanley, go down to the Bell Center, and for the hockey game, for the shows, and they would stop here for a pregame pizza, a beer. They don’t anymore because they go out from the Peel Metro station, other exits. They don’t come from the Stanley exit. So we dropped from that a lot!” said Jean-Daniel Nadeau, the owner of Brigade Pizzeria.
With phase one of the Sainte-Catherine Ouest Project completed, business owners included in phase two have had to deal with intermittent road closures since work officially began years ago.
“Construction-wise, it’s been damaging our sales like crazy. Starting in 2020, what I did is I did a timeline of when they dig, when they reopen, and our cells, you know, fluctuating based on the construction and what they do. And I can see clearly, and I send that to the city as well when we ask for help. It clearly shows that in 2023, when they start digging in August, our sales start dropping. And so far as the cells have dropped by 60 per cent,” said Nadeau.
Nadeau says things have gotten so dire over the last few months that they’ve had to reduce opening hours – closing at 2:30 and reopening at 5:00 p.m., which he says they’ve never had to do before.
“Everybody in the neighborhood, it’s not just us here, it’s not just Brigade. It’s everybody on the street. There’s a few restaurants on the street that are suffering,” said Nadeau.
“The guy across the street is doing phenomenal sales before, and now they have to close for lunch. That’s not normal!”
According to Nadeau, it’s not just the city’s multi-stage project that’s had a negative impact on business owners in the area; it’s also the lack of parking that’s exacerbating the issues caused by the redevelopment project.
“They don’t clean the snow anymore. They don’t know how to do that. Now, people can’t park. So parking are not accessible because there’s snow in front of them. And on major arteries like Maisonneuve, like Sherbrooke Street, Snowbank, you can’t park your car. And if you do find one that is clean, then you have a little red tips on top that says you can’t park. For what reason? Nobody knows,” said Nadeau. “They’ve blocked all the electricity born, the electricity charger for cars. You can’t, there’s two of them. There’s one on Stanley, one on Drummond. They’re both closed right now.”
In a statement to CityNews, city officials replied, saying, “We are aware that the program for businesses in areas affected by major construction work does not include everybody impacted. We are already in contact with Brigade Pizzeria and have asked for our services for the program to be expanded. This process can take several weeks.”
The City also acknowledged they’ve been in touch, Nadeau says it’s already been weeks since he’s heard from city officials, leaving him to wonder whether they’ll get financial assistance from the city before the end of construction of phase two, projected to end in 2030.
“We’re not asking to make money out of this. We are all asking just for a chance to stay in business,” said Nadeau. We don’t feel that we’re being heard here. We don’t feel like anything is really happening until it really happens.
