Construction continues on St. Clair right-of-way
Posted June 27, 2011 7:18 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Construction is continuing on St. Clair Avenue West, much to the disappointment of the area’s councillor – and local business owners.
“You have hundreds of businesses along St. Clair and those are the ones who are struggling. Some of them closed down,” Coun. Cesar Palacio told CityNews.
‘There was a total mismanagement of funds and there was no vision,” he added. Pelacio said he would be meeting with bureaucrats to discuss the problem, and he wants to know when the loose ends on St. Clair will be wrapped up.
While the streetcar route was completed in 2010, there are still finishing touches to be made. There are soles where trees should be, and St. Clair is lined with barren gardens and planters filled with weeds.
The 6.7 kilometre project began in 2005 and was supposed to be completed in two years. Instead, it’s dragged on for six years at a cost of $105 million – far more than the initial $65 million budget.
“I’m devastated, I’m upset, everybody told them [the delay] was going to happen and yet they pushed it through because it was a city council that had an agenda,” Mel Giannone, owner of La Paloma, told CityNews.
