Sidewalks will be open during construction of the 23 storey tower opposite city hall. Demotion to begin early in September.

By Pepper Parr

August t 22nd, 2019

BURLINGTON, ON

Lisa Kearns waiting for a question from the audience.

Lisa Kearns, Councillor for ward 2 was back before her constituents again – it was the second week in a row that she stood before an audience and took them through the intricacies of Construction Management and Traffic control during construction projects..

Last week the meeting was related to the Adi Nautique development at the corner of Lakeshore and Marsha where the audience learned that the construction timeline is about 30 months.

This time it was the Carnacelli development opposite city hall – where the time line is 30 months. The 23 storey development, known commercially as The Gallery also has a new address – because the entrance is going to be on James they are using the municipal address of 2011 James to identify the development – not to confuse people who follow this type of thing.

The property to the left of the site has been approved for 17 storeys – they have appealed asking for 23 stories to match The Gallery development. The Centro Garden is on the extreme right.

The two developments are less than a km apart and will be under construction at about the same time.

Carriage Gate, the developers of the project, announced that they expect to begin demolition sometime immediately after Labour Day.

At about the same tine Lakeshore Road will be closed for a period of between eight and twelve weeks for road improvement work.

The audience was also advised that a pipeline that runs right through the city coming in from the Beachway along Elgin Street and running through the rear of the Mayrose Tayco property at the north end of the Elizabeth Street parking lot is scheduled to have some major remediation done – no specific dates were given.

Chaos is the word that best describes what is going to take place in the city.

The objective is to manage that chaos as professionally as possible. Kearns was in the room explain that everything was going to be fine – there were protocols and procedures in place to handle every situation.

Drawings were displayed showing where the trucks that will haul away the material from the demolished site and where the concrete trucks would be staged while they were waiting to enter the site, disgorge the concrete and move on so that the next truck could come in.

Cement and dump truck movement plan.

Transit movement plan.

The public will not lose the use of the Brant Street or James Street – the areas where construction is taking place will be covered so that pedestrians are safe.

Kearns assured the audience that she would be on top of it all – her office on the eighth floor of city hall overlooks the site.

Concern about the noise, the dust and the traffic flow were not as important as to where the trades people working on the site were going to park. The Carnacelli interests on the property the Berkeley was built on and the land to the north where there was to be a parking lot and a medical building that would front on Caroline – that space will be used for parking in the early stages. Mark Bales who is overseeing the project did announce that the corporation had arranged to rent about 40 parking spots from the city – which didn’t go down all that well with the area residents or those with retail operations in the immediate area.

Timeline for the construction and completion of The Gallery opposite city hall.

People wanted to know how many trucks would be in the area – they were told seven to nine which was later bumped up to 12. They will be driving in and out of the site from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.

The audience was told that there could be anywhere between seven and seventy workers on the site at any one time.
Kearns has worked with Transportation department people and has, she said, gone as high as the City Manager to resolve some of the issues. The City is in the process of creating a Construction Management Plan that will be in place for future developments.

Kearns said that given the developments that are in line at the Planning department the city is looking at three, five perhaps even seven years of downtown construction.

There then came a point in the meeting when Kearns decided all the questions had been asked and answered and it was time to wrap it up.

The audience got the “bums rush” and those who had questions could hang around.