Repairs to Downtown will begin again in the coming months.
President of the Downtown Association Helen Rice says upgrades to the underground core are vital to support future developments.
“It’s the underground that is most important. It is not a beautification project. A lot of that infrastructure was put in, in the thirties. So, we have already had one incident where a pipe burst, also we cannot do major upgrades, major new projects, the infrastructure could not support it.”
Rice says businesses will stay open during construction and owners are being informed as road work nears its start.
“We’re working very closely with Wapiti, so that they maintain access, they are visiting the businesses one on one to say, ‘what are your concerns, what do you need?’ We’re doing constant email and fax out updates and a member of Wapiti is attending every one of our board meetings.”
The finishing repairs will be focused on parts of 101 Street, 102 Avenue and 100th Avenue.
Another component to the rehabilitation is demolishing the old Park Hotel to make room for new projects.
“I potentially would see maybe a three-story office building; it could be an office building for the first three floors and then residential on top of it. There’s all sorts of potential for that site.”
Rice says weather permitted all work planned for this summer should be completed without delay.
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