The first two phases of Kincardine’s Downtown Dig have been completed, opening most of downtown Kincardine to traffic.
Queen Street is now open between Lambton Street and Durham Market Square South, complete with on-street parking available.
Community Economic Development Coordinator Cherie Leslie says “It’s been a major undertaking. We had the road closed to vehicle traffic, but we tried to keep the sidewalks open for customers and visitors to our downtown. It’s been definitely a difficult summer with the construction work, so we’re glad to see it kind of wrapped up and have people come back to our downtown and enjoy shopping and dining.”
Some local stores had to even change where customers would enter their buildings in order to allow access during work, but overall the municipality did its best to avoid disrupting day-to-day business.
On rare occasions, some businesses were unable to open for regular hours because of the construction being done.
The municipality says that the rest of the project is scheduled to be completed next month, and a celebration is going to take place on November 17th along with the annual Hometown Christmas event, and that’s when the municipality will hold their $1,000 grand prize draw for anyone who participated in their Downtown Dig Passport promotion, which encouraged residents to visit and shop at local businesses during construction.
Leslie says that although it’s been a long time for downtown Kincardine to be under construction, it was necessary to get the work done.
“Our underground infrastructure was really, really old. I think our sewer lines were around a hundred years old so we were getting to a critical point [where] the work needed to be done. This definitely helps. We do have some future developments planned in our downtown area, so this definitely helps to ensure that our existing businesses and existing buildings can remain serviced, but also allows us to plan for some more growth in the future.”
Some work will have to wait until next spring, including a final layer of pavement, along with new benches, planters, trees, and garbage cans.
