According to the businesses close to where the new Powell River Public Library will be located at Crossroads Village, construction and renovations have been disruptive and frustrating.
“The noise, the disruption, the vehicle parking, the mess, people not knowing if you’re open or not because of the construction going; it’s not great,” said Shawna Graham, owner of Flowers by Cori-Lynn.
Graham’s business is on the parking lot level, almost adjacent to the construction site.
She said she has had comments from people asking how to get upstairs where there are businesses above the library. Businesses located above the new library location are now tenants of City of Powell River, who recently purchased that section of the building.
One of those second-floor tenants is Simply Bronze, owned by Danica Work.
“We’re having problems with elevator access. People are complaining. It’s hard to get up here,” said Work. “You can’t really see where you enter. People are not knowing if we’re open or closed.”
Work also shares Graham’s concern about the parking situation around the construction site.
“It’s hard to find parking space, there’s a huge gate through the middle of it and a big ugly hole with a pile of dirt,” she said.
According to Graham, the longer the project takes the more it deters people from doing business in the section of the mall where the new library is located. Work said it is definitely affecting her business.
Another business above the library has had to move because of the noise from construction.
“We weren’t able to run our yoga classes there because of the noise of construction,” said Terri Cramb, owner of Nourish Yoga and Wellness Studio. “We’ve had to relocate to an alternate space.”
City of Powell River is the building’s new landlord and, according to director of infrastructure Tor Birtig, the city hasn’t done the best job of keeping its tenants informed.
“Communication could have been better,” said Birtig. “We made some assumptions that the construction crews over there were keeping businesses apprised of what was happening because they knew the intimate details of what their schedule was going to be. We made an assumption that this was being communicated and I guess it hasn’t been communicated all that well at this point.”
Birtig said he will be meeting with city staff and Crossroads Village management in order to better provide tenants with updates.
According to business owners, the update they want to hear is when the library will be finished. According to city and library staff, the new target date is November.
“I’m disappointed that it’s taken longer than it has,” said Graham. “I was looking forward to it being done in August. That’s a discouraging thing.”
The delays are also worrisome to Work. “It could be November. It could be January. We don’t know,” she said.
Birtig was not able to provide a firm completion date for the construction.
“Initially, the contractor said that the library would be completed by the middle of August,” he said. “At this point, I couldn’t give you a finite date. We are looking at November, but we haven’t been able to finalize that with the contractor.”
Despite delays and disruptions, businesses are positive about the potential payback when the library is eventually finished.
“I’m certainly hoping that when it’s completed it’s going to be a positive thing to bring more people into this area,” said Graham. “If they come to the library, they may come into our stores. That’s my hope.”
