Water Street Infrastructure Project Postponed to 2017

Today, the City of St. John’s announced that it will postpone the start of the Water Street infrastructure replacement project to spring 2017.  This decision is a result of a number of factors including: the complex nature of the project; its location in an important economic hub of the City; consultations with downtown business organizations; and input from individual business owners who require more time to prepare for the construction. While the City’s plans for both underground and streetscape design work are proceeding as scheduled, postponing the project also provides additional time for utility stakeholders to develop their detailed design work.
 
“By postponing the project by one year we are able to work with the downtown stakeholder community and the utilities to ensure we have plans that manage not only the construction but also contingency, marketing and communications,” said Dave Lane, Councillor and Chair of the City’s Economic Development, Tourism and Public Engagement Standing Committee. “We will work with the business community to minimize the impact as much as we can to make the project successful. We all know that the infrastructure work must proceed. However, we have listened to our stakeholder community and we want to work with them as we continue with our plans.”
 
At this time, the City can confirm the project will begin in 2017 on the west end of Water Street at Waldegrave Street to Adelaide Street.  It is anticipated that the project will take five years and move from west to east, on a cove by cove basis, to Prescott Street. Additional details about the construction will be shared as they become available.
 
The City will continue to work with a subset of Downtown St. John’s (business owners on Water Street) as well as Downtown organizational stakeholders – Downtown St. Johns, Destination St. Johns, Restaurants Association of NL, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, St. John’s Board of Trade and Building and Office Managers Association -- to ensure the entire downtown business community is engaged in the next stages of this project.
 
Details and updates will be posted to engagestjohns.ca and a separate page created for the construction component of the project.

Media Contact:
Kelly Maguire
Media Relations
City of St. John's
709-576-8491
kmaguire@stjohns.ca