Southampton residents and business community members were at an informal meeting to see plans for the High Street reconstruction project Thursday night.
It was held at the old Southampton Town Hall, and had municipal staff, councillors, and consultants on hand to answer questions in a come-and-go setting with picture boards and posters explaining the project. The design consultation part of the process is already done. Thursday’s meeting was about presenting a schedule and explanation of the planned work.
Engineering Services Manager Ruhul Amin says the work will take place on the parking space areas of High Street, and traffic will continue in each direction on the road down the middle. “We will keep that, but we will restrict parking. There will be no parking during construction,” says Amin.
He says there are a number of alternatives to parking on High Street. Employees and business operators are being asked to park on Victoria Street, which is one block away and runs perpendicular to High Street. “We have plenty of parking on Victoria, north and south on both sides,” says Amin, He suggests leaving the closer parking for customers and seniors. There will be parking at the Southampton Coliseum and Amin notes the Southampton Legion is making its parking lot available for public use. People can also park on some side streets.
Amin says he knows it will be challenging, and the Town and consultants continue to consider further parking options like a drop-off zone for those with accessibility needs, and for commercial loading. He says the Town is working to identify those areas.
Amin also notes, the sidewalks will be mostly open, and where sidewalk work is being done, the Town will do its best to provide a path for people to continue around the work. He says they will make arrangements to enable pedestrians to get to businesses.
The first phase of work is set to take place from the May to September from Victoria Street to Grosvenor Street. The Second phase is in 2026 and will be from Grosvenor to Dominion Point (the big flag by the beach). The Town explains on its website why construction is happening during the summer, saying, “Completing certain surface work (such as concrete and asphalt paving) late in the fall can compromise the quality of the work due to unpredictable weather conditions. An early start also helps to mitigate against risks of delays and spillover to the following season.”
Over the course of the now completed design consultation phase, there was an initial proposal that reduced parking by 65 spaces. There was some public opposition to that, and now there will only be a reduction of four spaces. Some other features that were intially discussed won’t happen, like mid-block pedestrian crossings with signals and additional EV parking has been scrapped.
Mayor Luke Charbonneau says, “The key message would be, people aren’t going to notice a huge amount of change in terms of the form and function of the street. We’ve gone through the whole thing, looked at all sorts of different options and we’re essentially sticking to what it is today. The biggest part of this project is the underground work. That’s the part of the street that you don’t see but is in most need of repair.”
Charbonneau says there are numerous services including phone, internet, electricity, water and sewer underground and they all need upgrading and repairing. “Its the whole profile. Everything is getting worked on.”
He says they’re also adding new fixtures and trees and benches. “Some things to brighten up the street, modernize it, make it a better place to hang out and to be downtown. The angle parking is staying. We are going to add a few curb extensions in certain places to make it easier to cross, but I think it’s going to fit in well with the street, it’s not going to take a lot of parking away. The things that we heard from the public, we heard and we’ve incorporated into the design. So I think people will be very happy with the project in the end.”
With regard to the impact work may have on local businesses, Charbonneau says, “The Town understands that when you do construction on the main street, it’s disruptive to business. We’re going to do everything we can to minimize that disruption, to make sure pedestrians can access the stores, to make sure they know the stores are open.”
He adds, “We have shortened the length of time this project is going to take, sped it up so that we can be in and out of here as fast as possible to minimize the length of time that we’re disrupting business. The Town is going to do everything we can to make it so people can get downtown during construction and to get this project built and done and get out of there so that businesses don’t have us there disrupting their business for any longer than we have to.”
Also of note, sanitary main lining work, which the Town says is a faster method than replacing sanitary mains and gives them a new lifespan, is being done overnight this week. It was slated for last week but heavy rain necessitated its postponement because the mains have to be dry. “We are actually doing that at nighttime. 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” says Ruhul Amin. He hopes it will only take one or two nights. He says “you can still use (and flush) the toilet,” wash your hands and the usual, but not shower during those overnight hours. That’s happening tonight or tomorrow night.
The Town says it will post the display board content online following the meeting.
Photo by Claire McCormack
Photo by Claire McCormack
Photo by Claire McCormack
