The peak construction season could see a few pauses this summer, at least in the downtown core and on select major roads as Toronto prepares to host six games for the FIFA World Cup.  

The City of Toronto has developed a plan that will restrict lane closures for hydro work and construction. It’s a move that industry stakeholders say could delay occupancy at several high-rise developments and even cost some workers weeks or months of paycheques. 

“It could be upwards of 10,000 units. We’ve got hundreds of projects at the residential side,” Richard Lyall, President of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario says of the impact. “There’s commercial work, office work that’s being done. There’s institutional work. And of course, we’ve got a lot of civil work that’s ongoing. That’s roads, subways, and things like that. So, everything’s sort of interconnected.” 

There will be “no work permitted” on roads and sidewalks within an area bounded by Sherbourne Street, Bloor Street, Lansdowne Avenue, and the lakeshore, as well as major arterial roads between Dufferin Street and Yonge Street from the lakeshore to Highway 401. The restrictions will be in place from May 1 through July 31.

Toronto is hosting World Cup games between June 12 and July 2.  

“May 1 is right around the corner. Our projects take years. Some of the bigger projects, the planning and the construction sequencing and contracting is very precise. It’s not something that you can just sort of say, ‘Okay, we’ll stop this for two months’ or we won’t be able to start something for a month, that kind of thing,” explains Lyall.  

Closing traffic lanes or sidewalks is often required to accommodate machinery, make sizable deliveries and for the safety of pedestrian, drivers, and workers. Limiting the ability to close those lanes will essentially pause construction. “It’s very costly and has very severe ramifications, especially for the skilled trades that are working on the job. If they’re out, they’re not getting paid,” Lyall says. 

Scott McLellan, Chief Operating Officer of Plaza Corp says workers could miss out on paycheques. “If we’re up on the 30th floor, we’ll deliver the kitchen to the 30th floor and the 31st floor immediately followed by that. The workers that are hired on piecemeal, every time that they put a kitchen in and complete it, they get paid,” McLellan says.  

“We have to go back to them and tell them that we don’t know when the deliveries are going to be. So, therefore, you’re out of work for a month. This is not the time to be telling people in our industry that rely on a paycheck.” 

The construction industry has been struggling with a major downturn in the condominium market. That, coupled with a rough winter, has made the industry particularly vulnerable. 

“The commercial consequences are huge. We’re talking many millions of dollars here at work. Hard to imagine exactly what the total would be. So, this is really serious,” Lyall says. 

Lyall was part of a meeting with several industry stakeholders and the City earlier this week, where they voiced their concerns about the plan. “They’ve asked us to present our views in writing and we’re doing that now.”  

Part of the issue is the time frame.  

“I’m not sure what the thinking was that went into this. It is, quite frankly, a little crazy, maybe a little overkill,” says McLellan. Plaza Corp has two properties near completion that are directly impacted.  

“We understand that … when the six games are actually on, that there might be some restrictions. Of course, we understand that. But to take away permits and not allow infrastructure work to be done a month prior to that and then after that. [It] doesn’t make a lot of sense.” 

“The timing and scope of these measures reflect the scale of the event and the need to manage increased travel demand,” Russell Baker, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto, said in a statement to CityNews.  

The limits in place are far more restrictive than those generally witnessed during other festivities, like Pride Toronto, which brings an estimated three million people into the city in June, about ten times more than is anticipated for the FIFA World Cup.  

“The City will continue to review exception requests and work with partners to ease restrictions where possible,” Baker adds. 

But McLellan says one-off exceptions won’t help the situation.  

“It has to be black and white. If we want to make our deliveries next Friday, how long in advance do we have to sit down and try and negotiate that with the City again? It’s not going to work. It makes things more difficult,” shares McLellan. 

“We make the promises on delivery dates. We make promises on occupancy so that they can move out of where they are, prepare their own closing dates, look after their own financials when they move in. And out of the blue, now we have to go back to them and say, ‘Perhaps there’s going to be a one-month to two-month delay on their occupancy because of what’s happened with the restrictions that have been put on the development industry in the last two to three weeks.’”   

Plaza’s Yonge at Wellesley was expected to start occupancy in less than a year. Its development at 400 King West was supposed to open the doors to owners before the end of this year. 

“We can’t make up lost time,” Lyall says.   

“The fact is, is that people are going to be making money on these FIFA games. And we’re concerned that, ‘Hey, why are we supposed to pick up the tab for this?’” says Lyall. “And for companies that are already barely making things work right now, given what’s happened in the marketplace, these consequences could be quite dire. There could be damages. There could litigation.”