Two long-established restaurants on Fairway Road in Kitchener will be bought, then torn down to make room for a new transit facility.
During the planning stages of the new LRT construction, Fairview Park Mall expressed that they were no longer interested in having the bus terminal on their property, so a new location had to be determined. The retail property at the corner of Fairway Road and Wilson Avenue was determined to be the new site.
Waterloo Region council decided Wednesday evening to begin the process of expropriating the two parcels of land. Burger King and Crabby Joe’s have been in business on the properties for many years. Councillor Tom Galloway says it is a negotiation process. "Obviously the owners are going to have relocation costs, loss of business costs, and of course the property costs themselves. These all have to be negotiated, so we may have some idea what we expect that to be... but it'll be a negotiation process" he says.
The cost of the new terminal, expected to be around $11,000,000, will be split between the LRT budget and Grand River Transit. Construction is expected to begin in the Spring of 2017.
