If you asked any uptown Waterloo business owner how they felt on Wednesday, “excited” was one of the first words to roll off their tongues.
“The street is opening, we are moving forward, and thank goodness we are done,” said Sherry Hagerman of Seasons Fine Clothing.
Between William and Erb streets, King Street reopened around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday after a 10-month closure for construction related to the Ion light rail transit system.
As the owner of a business fronting onto the closed part of King, Hagerman says she saw a significant drop in customers during the closure.
“They didn’t want to fight through the construction to get here,” she said.
“July and August were very, very difficult because there was nobody on the street.”
Things weren’t quite as bad for All My Nails Salon.
Salon owner Peter Davies says business was down – especially from university students who chose not to figure out how to get to his business via detouring buses – but the more pressing concern was helping clients navigate through the shifting road closures and detours to find their way in.
“We cannot wait for King Street to open up – no more fences, no more obstructions, no more detouring and no more signage moving people around,” Davies said.
Obstructions and detours were also big concerns for Nimira Husein.
She owns Tadpole Children’s Shoppe – meaning most of her clients are mothers, many of whom are pushing children in strollers.
“Accessibility became a really big obstacle for them to get to my store,” she said.
Husein says she felt business impacts from construction for about two years, dating back to when Caroline Street was first closed in 2014.
Although she says she “pondered” shutting down her shop, she ultimately decided to persevere through the work.
“This business means way too much to me,” she said.
While the shops are glad to have King Street back open, they aren’t under any illusions that their business will immediately return to pre-construction levels.
“People have been going other places for 10 months, so it’s going to take some advertising and some effort to get those people back down here,” Hagerman said.
To help remind people of the area’s existence and mark the arrival of the Christmas season, the UpTwn Waterloo BIA is hosting a festival Saturday featuring ice sculptures, live entertainment, trolley rides and visits with Santa Claus.
Ion-related construction in uptown Waterloo isn’t complete just yet.
Once December arrives, crews will be busy in the area working to build the LRT stops and string overhead wires to power the vehicles.
Some of that work may require lane closures, but GrandLinq says King will only require one more full closure – a “minor” one – in 2017 for final paving work.
With reporting by Nadia Matos
