As many of you are aware, construction has begun at 1445-1451 Wellington St West, the site of the Mizrahi project. We hosted a pre-construction meeting earlier this Fall, but unfortunately at that time some details were still in the process of being determined between Mizrahi and the City. In the weeks that have followed, our office has coordinated meetings between Mizrahi, the City, and the community association and neighbours in order to finalize those details. We are now in a solid position to present the information as a whole.
In the Spring, Mizrahi began to discuss their construction staging options with our office. At that time, there were two options proposed, neither of which had been commented on by Traffic Management. Option 1 saw the sidewalk and a lane on Wellington St West being closed. Option 2 saw the parklette area being used as the construction staging area, which would require the trees to be cut down. Both options had pros and cons. Ultimately the potential pedestrian impacts as a result of Option 1 were concerning, and Option 2 was reviewed in more detail. Further, Traffic Management eventually weighed in on the two options. Under existing traffic volumes, Traffic Management can’t permit a PM peak lane closure. As well, based on the pedestrian detouring length, there is concern about pedestrian safety around major heavy vehicle activity. Ultimately Traffic Management was unable to support Option 1 due to the impacts to pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles and potential capacity issues on Wellington St W.
Therefore Option 1 was reviewed in finer detail. Initially, Mizrahi requested to install a gate off of Rockhurst (Gate 3). This was discussed during our community meeting recently. At the time, Mizrahi had not received formal permission from the City to do so, nor had Traffic Management evaluated the details of this gate access. Initially, Mizrahi was proposing to only use Gate 3 after the excavation period, for the delivery of rebar, the one-time elevator delivery and window deliveries every few weeks. However, after further discussion with Traffic Management, the following has been determined (feel free to reference the Logistics Plan attached below):
Changes to the parklette:
Additional:
Communication: