PLAGUE OF ROADWORK
Ted Dranias waited until the city was finished with construction to reopen his restaurant Petros at a new location. Six months later, crews tore up the sidewalk. It’s the ‘stupid disorganization’ that’s killing his business, he tells Jason Magder.
Ted Dranias just can’t seem to outrun the city’s jackhammers
Plagued by construction at his old restaurant, Dranias moved his 40-seat Restaurant Petros from Guy St. at Notre-dame St., to William St., one block south — in a much larger venue.
He waited until road construction was completed in December to open the new restaurant, but earlier this month, William St. was dug up again.
After the coronavirus shuttered all restaurants, Dranias was eager to reopen Petros — which can seat 90 people with distancing measures taken into account. However, last week, as he was making preparations, city crews returned to William St. and ripped up its sidewalks. You now have to walk on a wooden gangway to get into the new and improved Restaurant Petros. The sidewalk has been torn up and dust is blowing through the street.
“They said they would be here for two or three days; it has now been two weeks,” Dranias told the Montreal Gazette on Saturday. “You can’t access my restaurant now.”
According to the city of Montreal’s Info-travaux website, the streets of Griffintown near where Petros is located are part of a threeyear construction project, due to end in September of this year.
William St. is undergoing replacement of its underground infrastructure and its street lights.
Dranias said he doesn’t know why the city couldn’t have done the work last year when the street was torn up for most of the summer.
“That’s the problem with Montreal: with this stupid disorganization of the logistics of construction, they’re killing the businesspeople,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Dranias has been stymied by road construction. Before moving his restaurant, Notre-dame St. was plagued with a construction project that dragged on for more than a year.
“It was the same monkey-see, monkey-do routine there as well,” he said.
Dranias said many businesses in the Griffintown area are hurting from a barrage of road construction in the area.
Peel St. is closed south of Notre-dame St., while workers have torn up stretches of St-antoine and Guy Sts. to replace pipes. There’s also construction on nearby De La Commune St. in the Old Port. More construction planned for the area includes the construction of a station for the REM, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced recently.
Businesses have long complained about the city’s lack of support during long-term road construction projects. Among the arteries that have been particularly hard hit by construction projects in recent years are St-denis St. and St-laurent Blvd. And on Bishop St., construction of a ventilation shaft for the métro forced the closing of most of the street for four years.
After that work had finished, another major construction project — this time a residential condominium construction — forced the closing of the street for at least another year. Most of the businesses on Bishop St. closed down during that construction project.
Dranias said he wished construction crews in the city were more efficient and worked longer hours, because he said projects drag on for far too long.
“The companies don’t care,” he said. “They’re not very efficient. They close the construction sites at noon on Fridays.”