This is a question from Ginmill

I sincerely appreciate the situation our small businesses are in. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on small business are not lost on any of us. We’ve been supporting our local businesses, including those downtown, throughout the pandemic. Early on we paused business licence renewals and made Transit and downtown parking free. We launched Guelph Shops to encourage our community to shop in Guelph and we’ll continue to promote local shopping and spending, especially for the holidays. We also just launched See You in Guelph, a promotion that offers a $100 Visa gift card to anyone booking two-night stays with the hope that people will use these gift cards locally for dining and shopping. As part of this project, we are developing a construction phasing plan for the entire area of work: Baker Street, Chapel Lane and Park Lane, to ensure we will not shut down these streets and lanes at the same time. We are working to mitigate and minimize impacts on this part of the downtown core and more specifically those residents and businesses directly accessing these streets.All efforts will be made to maintain access as much as possible and from time to time temporary or limited access will be required to upgrade streetscapes and municipal infrastructure within an overlooked part of our downtown. As plans change we will communicate these changes in a timely fashion to the impacted community.Although disruptive, this work is crucial to creating the Baker District redevelopment, a vibrant district nestled in Guelph’s historic core that will create a renewed area of activity, commerce and civic space for the local community and city. We are hopeful this short-term disruption will lead to long-term economic and social gain.