Should businesses be compensated when city tears up Queen Street?

Sault Ste. Marie's Downtown Association is looking into the possibility of Queen Street businesses receiving compensation for losses incurred during the upcoming Queen Street reconstruction.

"One of our members mentioned that when they went through a similar construction project in a different area, there was someone who provided compensation based on a percentage of loss," Jacob Rendell, an association director, told a meeting of the group's board this week.

"Now that is something that I've never heard of," Rendell said.

"I don't expect that to happen, but I'm wondering if we should be investigating that and distributing that information to the membership?

"Even if that is just a no, to squash the questions or let people know how to apply for that, if that is a possibility. Is that something in our realm to investigate?" Rendell asked.

"We're in the research stage of how that might be able to be best achieved," Nicholas Rosset, the board's chair, told Rendell.

"Putting together something that we could do at an advocacy level?" Rossett asked.

"I sent it off to some members of the board... that we would be bringing up these sorts of discussions for some supports for the businesses affected," he said.

On an unrelated matter, Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo reported at this week's meeting that the ice rink at the new Downtown Plaza attracted 16,000 skaters this winter.

"Normally, our skating rinks collaboratively, we'll see about 35,000 users and the plaza alone is 16,000 That's crazy. So it's really good. It's nicely populated," Caputo said.

"I think we'll see a whole new group of people coming out. Maybe the folks that aren't so winter-sport oriented. We'll start seeing them coming out and enjoying as the snow melts. It's pretty cool," she said.

The deadline for tenders for the $6 million worth of downtown road construction planned for this year is April 24.

The final contract is expected to go to city council for approval on May 13, with construction starting as soon as possible after that.

The 870 metres of Queen Street between East and Bruce will be rebuilt this year.