City fires contractor on College St. sidewalk project
The city says the contractor failed to live up to its contract but the contractor blames the city for delays.

TheStar.com
Oct. 10, 2016
David Rider

The City of Toronto has effectively fired a construction company midway through a delay-riddled College St. sidewalk beautification project.

Merchants furious over street disruptions that they say have slashed sales by as much as half, forcing one into early retirement and others into debt, welcome a winter reprieve. But they know broken sidewalks, a maze of metal fencing and lost street parking will return next spring with a new contractor.

“We’re going to hit another tough stretch again in the summer (of 2017) — they’ll ruin it again for us,” predicted Denis Pires of Bairrada Churrasqueira on College near Havelock St.

“A lot of these businesses will go out of business. How can you support the rent? They’ll go quit and get a job working for somebody else.”

Pires and about a dozen other business owners plan to meet soon with local city councillors Mike Layton and Ana Bailao to press for city compensation, which could prove difficult because the project is the brainchild of their own merchants’ group, the College Promenade Business Improvement Area.

The $3.4-million replacement of damaged sidewalks with interlocking brick, and installation of new trees, lights, artistic bike posts and intersection “parkettes” between Havelock and Shaw Sts. is a BIA project. The city acted as project manager, providing a low-interest loan for about half the amount and funding the rest.

The city hired, after a competitive bid process, contractor Four Seasons Site Development to start in early July and have major work on both sides of the street done by Oct. 8.

Work on College’s north side was not quite finished last week and the south side sat untouched. Streetcar service had to resume Sunday, with construction fencing removed, because there is no budget for continued replacement buses.

“We issued the contractor a notice of default because of certain deficiencies,” on Sept. 28, said Frank Clorizio, the city’s design and construction director, “to give them time to rectify or address the issues that we had.

“Then last Wednesday we terminated the contract for their failure to adhere to the terms of the contract,” and brought in another company to patch holes — putting asphalt in three spots that will next year be replaced by interlocking stones — and ensure people can safely access the businesses, he said.

Clorizio refused to list the “deficiencies,” saying they could be the subject of legal action. He added that the city will seek compensation from Four Seasons for any resulting cost overruns and re-tender remaining work to start next April or May.

The business owners and Layton say the city authorized construction crews to work until 11 p.m., and even later as the magnitude of the delay became evident, but work almost always stopped before 5 p.m.

In a statement, Four Seasons denied any wrongdoing, blaming delays on the city’s “lack of pre-investigation” of the site and failure to promptly give instructions on how to deal with fuel tanks discovered underground.

“All of these delays, all of which are very unfortunate, have been out of our control,” Four Seasons said, adding that rather than add a late shift it doubled the number of crews on site to eight.

The city didn’t give direction on dealing with tanks found July 18 until Oct. 3 and denied the contractors’ request to start work on the south side of College in the mean time, Four Seasons said.

“As a company, we pride ourselves on the work we do, and we honour all of our contract obligations . . . Delays on the part of the city however, as well as numerous design changes by the city, have unfortunately prevented us from meeting the tight timelines.”

Merchants don’t know whether to blame their own BIA, the city, the contractor or all of them for delays and safety concerns they say were evident almost from the start.

Alice Fernandes, 63, has decided to close her women’s clothing shop and retire a couple of years early after the disappearance of walk-in traffic cut her sales in half.

“It’s sad,” she said at a Thursday meeting of business owners. As for compensation, “I hope it comes, but I’m not holding my breath.”

Adelina Fonseca, co-owner of Aziza Café, said some days were so slow she went home. Her cook quit after Fonseca reduced her hours, forcing family members to work an exhausting schedule.

Fonseca said four years of hard work made her business debt-free, then construction put her $15,000 in the hole.

Jill Rochon said wobbly planks initially provided as a ramp into her baby food shop were unsafe, and she is “floored” at what appeared to be mismanagement of the project.

Kayla Lopes, owner of Vice Versa Tanning, watched the mess from the south side of College and now knows her sidewalk will be torn up next spring when people like to get a base tan before flying south.

“Who do we blame?” she asked plaintively, noting the loss of car and bike parking already cut her sales.

Julie Fass, a BIA board member and housewares emporium owner, said the city “stepped up” by terminating the construction contract. “Our worst fear was the contractor would move to the south side, tear everything up and it would be left like that all winter,” she said.

“The city will come back to the BIA and our membership and see how we can learn from the mistakes and tender or do things differently,” Fass said, possibly replacing sidewalks a few blocks at a time rather than ripping up the whole strip.

“When you look at three months compared to (LRT construction) on Eglinton now or the time Roncesvalles was torn up, I still believe that the end result, the long term benefits, will outweigh the problems.”