First Avenue Businesses Suffer Without Bridge

By 250 News

Where are the customers? That's the question being asked by Trent Kiem, of Rogers Custom Meats as he stands on First Avenue 

Businesses along 1st Ave say the closure of the Cameron Street Bridge has resulted in   business losses of  between 10 and 50%.

The City has  the building of a new bridge as part of its 2008 Capital budget, but many of the First Avenue businesses say they can't survive that kind of wait.

"We went from it being an election priority to being started aound the time of the next election" says Trent Keim, who along with his wife Lori, operates Rogers Custom Meats on First Avenue.  Lori has been writing letters to City hall for three months.

They are not alone when it comes to  seeing a drop in business. 

Down the street at Mr. Quick Lube, General Manager Paul Kinder says,”We are now a street not a highway. 1st Ave used to be the by pass, that’s why we wanted our business along it. Now that the Cameron St. Bridge has been closed, business sucks”. 

Kinder  says  the numbers are down significantly  "This past winter is the worst year we have had in the past five years and we came through some tough times back then. Now when people pull into our business they say I’m sorry I haven’t been here for awhile, I just don’t go this way anymore." 

That comment is shared by LEJ International Trucks owner L. Josephson, "Our retail market is down about 10% and that is happening in a hot truck market. We should be up not down. It’s almost like the city is trying to force us out of here “.  

Starting a new bridge in 2008 isn't acceptable to Josephson "That’s ridiculous, our location sucks right now. We built a bridge across the Willow River in a couple of weeks and we can’t do that on the Cameron St.?  We built our business around that bridge and the truck traffic that it brings to this street. "

City Engineer Frank Blues says building a bridge like the emergency crossing for the Willow river is not a viable financial option  "There would be costs involved to  remove the existing bridge,  install a temporary bridge, then remove that temporary bridge to make way for a new crossing".  He also says a temporary bridge would do little to  handle heavy truck traffic as any new temporary  crossing would have reduced head room that couldn't handle big trucks.

At the Cat Rental store it was more of the same, Jean Charbonneau, says "We look out at the street every single day. There is less than half the traffic that there used to be on 1st Ave and you can see what effect that had on us, at least a 10% drop in retail sales."   Assistant Manager Derrick Knudsen says what is making it worse for the business along 1st Ave is that they have to travel, in some cases, twice as far as they formerly did to get anywhere. In the case of The Cat Rental Store he says "It has resulted in us taking twice as long to deliver goods to the mills and refinery and that costs twice as much. If they're planning the bridge for a start in 2008, there won’t be any of us left “ 

Bill Warner, who has operated various businesses along 1st since the early seventies says the family will sit down this summer and decide if they should continue. Warner is frustrated with the lack of action “The Mayor and Council should be impeached for what they have done to this side of the city . Surely they're not going to tell us that they didn’t see this coming for years and just slid it under the table? "  Warner adds " We used to count on getting a lot of our business from Mackenzie and places to the north, it formed a big part of our business, on the other side of the city they get their clients from the west like Vanderhoof. Now, unless they make a special effort to get to us, they simply don’t come."

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