City offers $5K in funding to Marda Loop businesses
Owners say revenues are down as construction hammers away
Cameron Fraser reached his wits' end in February.
As construction hammered away outside his Marda Loop restaurant, Fraser & Fig, he and fellow business owners felt they'd been left hanging in the wind for months.
His businesses' revenues had dropped by 20 per cent. Some claimed they'd earned 40 to 50 per cent less than normal. One store, Apt 22 Boutique, fully cut its losses last November and permanently closed, its owner telling local media the construction was primarily responsible for the decision.
The Marda Loop Main Streets project has been planned for years, but Fraser said there was minimal communication from the city around the week-to-week operations and how they would affect the area. With little warning, constantly changing road closures and detours became part of daily life.
“Nobody knew what the hell was going on,” he said.
On Feb. 5, he and nearly two-dozen Marda Loop businesses owners wrote a letter to city council pleading for help. A short while later, Fraser and a handful of business owners found themselves across the table from Gondek at Merchants in Marda Loop discussing the situation.
About a month later, after Fraser and his businesses presented to council at the advice of the mayor, a $5,000 lifeline for Marda Loop businesses affected by the construction received unanimous council approval. The funding is being used as a pilot to study how such a program could be permanently implemented — the first time such a program has been introduced in Western Canada.
“The good news out of all of this is that the mayor actually did listen to us,” Fraser said. Businesses in Bridgeland will also be eligible to receive the grant during construction of its own Main Street project.
The ongoing utility work on 33rd and 34th Avenue S.W. in Marda Loop, impossible to miss for drivers entering the neighbourhood off Crowchild Trail, will soon give way to a community transformation called the Main Streets project — a revamp local business owners say is needed, but is also digging deep into their bottom lines.
When complete, the area will have new landscaping, wide bike lanes, more seating areas and new gathering areas. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2025.
Located a distance south of downtown, businesses in Marda Loop heavily rely on Calgarians travelling by car to the neighbourhood. When Andrew Kim, CEO of WOW Holdings, established a WOW Bakery store in the area, management calculated about 80 per cent of traffic would come from people who drove and parked in the neighbourhood. He estimates the store's revenue has dropped 50 per cent since construction began.
In recent months, parking has become a scarce commodity and gridlock traffic is a daily feature of life for comers and goers in the area.
Boogie's Burgers, a local burger joint on 33rd Avenue S.W., has most recently been fenced off while city workers dug in front of the store. Once utility work is complete and sidewalk revamps begin, plywood will serve as the restaurant's entrance while the sidewalk is ripped up.
While appreciated, the $5,000 payment will make a negligible impact businesses' bottom line, said Brent de Decker, general manager of Boogie's Burgers. Boogie's sales are down about 15 per cent since construction began, he said.
“It's a pretty small drop in the pan for us,” he said. Like some of his peers, he's proposed a cut to businesses' property taxes during construction.
The city assessed that option, said Graham Gerylo, community and business relations manager at the City of Calgary, but because landlords would be the direct beneficiaries, the relief may not have ended up in the business owners' pockets.
Instead, Calgary took inspiration from Montreal's construction relief program initially developed in 2018, which offers a $5,000 lump-sum grant to businesses affected by construction. Montreal also compensates businesses up to $40,000 with the precise amount calculated based off the impact construction has had on profits. (Montreal's program is the only construction-relief program in Canada.)
The city felt the $5,000 sum was the least cumbersome option for businesses and allowed it to act quickly, Gerylo said.
“What we felt is we want to be responsive to those who are undergoing construction this year,” he said. “Let's adopt on similar to Montreal as a starting point and learn from it versus spending the next few months trying to engage businesses ... that way businesses are reaping the benefits right away.”
Andrew Sennyah, an Alberta-based senior policy analyst at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), commended the city for implementing the grant funding. Marda Loop businesses consulted with the CFIB when they drafted the letter to the city.
“The grant program is a good first step, but it should not have gotten to this point,” Sennyah said.
The city also created a new division two years ago — which Gerylo partly leads — that aims to support businesses through major construction projects. Gerylo said the city has created community “liaisons” who act as a point-person for businesses to reach during construction. The city has assigned one liaison to Marda Loop and recently hired another.
de Decker and Fraser have both noticed an uptick in engagement with the city and construction workers since the issue was raised earlier in the winter. The Marda Loop Business Improvement Association (BIA) is also preparing to run television commercials encouraging Calgarians to shop local and is hoping further city efforts will bring more customers into the area.
Even so, businesses expect revenues will remain low until construction wraps.
But after seeing the city's efforts, Fraser's sour mood toward the city has recently lifted, giving him a piece of optimism as the neighbourhood undergoes alterations he believes are ultimately needed.
“People are trying. That's where I see it now,” Fraser said. “If you talked to me a month and a half ago, I would have been like, `I hate everybody.'”