Reduced street access has resulted in up to an estimated 20-50-per-cent decline in sales for some small retail businesses, according to owners and advocates
Gastown business owners and their representatives are alarmed at how much City of Vancouver changes to traffic patterns in the area have reduced retail and hospitality sales during street reconstruction.
Inform Interiors’ owner Nancy Bendtsen told BIV her revenue is down by about 20 per cent. So did Angel Vancouver co-owner Jackie Haliburton. Wooden Table Hospitality president Sean Davis, who operates the restaurant Gringo, similarly cited a 20-per-cent year-over-year sales decline for April and May.
Given four months of construction-induced road closures, that translates into about $8 million in lost sales. If the closures continue through a separate two-month pedestrianized-street pilot project in July and August, and business continues to be down by $500,000 per week, the hit to the neighbourhood would be another $4 million in spending, according to Wargolet’s numbers.“The streets were decaying,” she said.
Bendtsen told BIV that she would have supported the pilot project if it were just on weekends, but that she believes running it on weekdays will lead to empty streets. A separate pedestrian-only area in July and August is slated to be around Maple Tree Square, where Alexander, Powell, Water and Carrall streets meet.
Haliburton acknowledged that the city has posted signs in western Gastown saying that area businesses are open. No signs were posted in eastern Gastown, she said. That restriction applies to buses, and it means that the No. 50 bus no longer travels along Powell Street to Water Street.
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