Business owners in the Bowness and Montgomery communities are “feeling really uneasy” as the City of Calgary prepares to move ahead with a Bearspaw South feeder main replacement.

Work sites are taking shape along the route of the replacement Bearspaw line, with heavy equipment piling into the area, fences being erected and detours being put in place.

Kellie Freeman, executive director of the Mainstreet Bowness Business Improvement Area (BIA), said that business owners in the area are “shell-shocked” that they’re going through the same thing they just went through only 18 months ago.

She had told councillors during a meeting on Tuesday that during the last water main repair, many Calgarians just thought that businesses in the area weren’t operating during the construction work.

Business owners are worried about the drop in foot traffic this time around, too.

“It’s easy to go to a different business to shop, and so when there’s any kind of traffic disruptions or inconvenience to Calgarians, they will avoid the area at all costs, and that’s what we’re dealing with,” she told reporters.

Freeman said they’ve dealt with communication issues with the City of Calgary, with her telling councillors that it’s felt at times that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

“A perfect example of that is last July, we had our annual Stampede-Bowness parade happening, starting at 9 a.m. and I got a phone call at 7 a.m. asking me, ‘what’s all the construction happening on Main Street? What’s going on?“ Freeman said, noting that there’s a clear approvals process communities must go through to set up a major event.

“So, essentially, yeah, construction crews showed up. They had no idea there was a festival or a parade that was about to start. Thousands of people coming.”

The area holds several major events over the summer months, including the large scale Tour de Bowness cycling race and summer festival.

Communication with businesses is key, Freeman said

Freeman said that she believes the City is doing the best they can to communicate with businesses given the expedited process of the Bearspaw south feeder main replacement.

She thinks the BIA can play a larger role in getting that info out.

“As you know, this project was scheduled to be over the course of a couple of years. Now it’s been fast tracking to eight months. So, the city and the people behind that, they need to move and pivot as quickly as they possibly can. To get that communication out, they are doing the best that they can. And the BIA were sort of second thought,” she said.

“I don’t think that’s intentional, but we’re not the first thought of communication. The more that we go through this, the more they’re learning that they can rely on, and, I don’t know, ask the BIAs for help. We can use this as leverage, I would say.”

Ward 1 Coun. Kim Tyers said that the BIAs need to be involved in conversations on the construction impacts.

“They need to be at the table and understanding, like, how severe the impacts are going to be, and they need to know that information as quickly as possible,” she said.

Tyers said that residents are also asking for town halls so they’ll better understand how their communities can best deal with the ongoing construction for the next year.

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said he was “enthused” by how quickly the city was working, while still taking into account the needs of businesses and residents in the area. He said choosing the micro tunnel option instead of a cut and cover along 16 Avenue mitigated a lot of the potential damage to the community.

“This would have had huge impacts on the residences and the businesses within Montgomery,” he said.  

“To see administration work through and figure out the ways to make the micro tunneling portion happen through Montgomery, that is administration really trying to at the same time as delivering safe, clean drinking water as quickly as possible for Calgarians en masse, also working to minimize the impacts on the residents and businesses of Montgomery, and so on that piece, I give them kudos.”

Support for the area not being ruled out

Freeman said that once the Bearspaw South feeder main replacement work is complete, she hopes the City of Calgary does something to help the area rebound. She told councillors they work on a shoestring budget of around $55,000 annually and rely a great deal on grants.

“I want to see funding so that we can do intentional programming,” she said.

“We need money so we can put on events, different activations, so we give people a reason to want to come out and visit.”

Both Couns. Tyers and Atkinson were open to that possibility. Atkinson said that a recovery fund to draw people down once work is complete might be the right thing to do.

“I think that that’s actually a responsibility of us as a city,” he said.

“This is citywide infrastructure coming and landing into the Bowness and Montgomery areas that is serving water to the entire city. It is important that we as Calgarians get behind the businesses that are suffering a major brunt of this impact.”

Tyers said that it’s a balancing act right now. She said there are ongoing conversations about the support the City of Calgary can provide to businesses.

The City of Calgary has a target date of December 2026 for the complete of the Bearspaw feeder main replacement.