ROAD BETWEEN CTC AND SOBEYS TO REOPEN AS APARTMENT CONSTRUCTION SLOWED BY CARPENTERS’ STRIKE

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — Work on a large new apartment complex at the south end of the downtown here is being slowed by a carpenters’ strike, but building continues.

Melissa Halford, director of development services for the Town of Gravenhurst, says she was on site last week and said otherwise construction continues with other trades workers at the SkyDev project.

She also added the road torn up between the Canadian Tire and Sobeys is only closed temporarily for a “re-alignment” and will re-open. But she didn’t say when.

District of Muskoka mapping shows the road is called Fountain Street and is in front of Skyway Avenue.

SkyDev owners own the two property sites both sides of the road.

It’s made business difficult for a handful of businesses in small adjacent plaza on Talisman Drive, where they’ve lost two major north-end entrances on the torn-up road with no entry from the grocer end.

Traffic into the plaza is down to a single lane at the south end where all are located next to CTC.

An A&W recently built on the same property is not open yet as it’s rumoured that they can’t find enough staff.

It’s all part of a busy continuing summer of residential growth in the town, said Halford.

Housing starts are underway or in the planning stages around the town, including a major 258 total lots-units expansion by the Muskoka Bay golf course owners west of the core.

It is proposing an east-ward extension at the end of John Street of James Street and would be built right up to behind the SkyDev apartments.

Closer to downtown, progress is continuing on a 29-unit apartment down off First Street — with a few townhouses up at street level. Following a demolition permit and work, they’ve applied for a building permit.

And farther out on Muskoka Beach Road, west of Wellington Street and Evans Avenue where dozens of homes have gone up the past two years and Loon Call continues to develop residences, the owners of Beechwood Forest property — where they angered neighbours by clear-cutting trees — have applied for permits for 106 homes.

Striking carpenters may be off the job, but construction continues on the SkyDev apartments at the south end of downtown Gravenhurst, says Melissa Halford, town director of development services.
And it may be gated off now, but shoppers who are used to slipping from Sobeys to Canadian Tire will be happy to learn the road will reopen slightly realigned. No date though when that will happen.
The torn-up roadway, which was a convenient retail link, lies barren as services are being replaced.
A handful of businesses in the small plaza, off Talisman Road, have been inconvenienced by the untimely road construction, leaving them with only one entrance at the south end and forcing customers to circle around back to enter their premises.
Surveyors have been out recently sizing up the connecting road as it is being realigned.

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