The Day the Earth Stood Still

By Daniel Edward Craig

For the residents, businesses and visitors to Yaletown who have endured construction of the Canada Line underground rapid transit station these past three years, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, it’s a speeding train—a Canada Line train. Whether it will flatten us with a railcar of problems—traffic, parking, security—or will transport our neighbourhood to a new level of cosmopolitanism remains to be seen.

The good news is the gaping pit that’s been clogging Yaletown’s main artery and affecting business since 2006 has been filled, and Davie Street is now reopen. Recently, government officials announced that Canada Line will be open by Labour Day, three months ahead of schedule. Soon passengers will be whisked from Yaletown to the airport in 22 minutes and downtown in just three minutes. Before the thunder of bulldozers fades away, a little reflection is in order.

I’ll never forget that day in 2005 when a group of super-friendly people from a company called Ravco came to visit me at Opus Hotel and told me about plans for a high-speed rail project linking the airport to Richmond and Vancouver. Yaletown would have its own underground station, directly across the street from the hotel, and it would take three years to build. I was crestfallen. Since opening in 2002, Opus had ranked as one of the top hotels in the city in occupancy and guest satisfaction. Soon our clean, safe, highly-desirable heritage neighourhood would be overrun by bulldozers, dump trucks and butt-crack-baring construction workers. As the hotel’s general manager I did what any great leader would do: I locked myself in my office and had a good cry. Then I went online to look for a new job.

At Opus we were deeply concerned about the impacts of construction on our guests. Hotels, which run on the promise of comfort and rest, typically remain quiet about construction, hoping guests won’t notice the jack-hammering in the lobby. One of our employees suggested we try something radical: we tell guests the truth. The idea was immediately dismissed as preposterous. But it fit in with our organizational values of integrity and respect, and when no one came up with a better solution, we decided to give it a whirl. From that point forward callers were informed about construction activity at time of reservation. Rooms closest to construction were sold at a discount. A construction notice was posted on our website and in our confirmation letters, and a note was placed in rooms to explain the project.

It was a nail-biting risk. We were providing our guests a reason to stay elsewhere and our competitors a weapon to use against us. Many of our rooms didn’t face the construction site and activity was sporadic—why alarm all guests when only a few would be disturbed? Transparency threatened to only exacerbate the problem.

Yet to ignore construction can be far more damaging to a hotel. While a guest at a hotel in Atlanta, I endured drilling next door for three days before I complained. I was transferred to the duty manager’s line, and I left a message. I didn’t hear back. The next day a gift basket was delivered to my room, complete with a jar of Georgian peach salsa. There was no note or business card, so I wasn’t sure who it came from. Meanwhile, the drilling turned to jack-hammering. I left another message for the duty manager, requesting to change rooms. Again, no call back. That night, another gift arrived, a slab of chocolate that vaguely resembled the hotel’s logo. It had melted—much like my resolve to fight. I checked out the next day and, as much as I enjoyed the peach salsa, I won’t be staying there again.

Another misguided tactic is to make light of construction. Years ago, when I worked at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto, to make light of lobby renovations management decided to dress up two front desk employees each shift as construction workers. One day, upon reporting for duty I was handed a hardhat and an orange vest. “I don’t think so,” I said, handing them back—the hotel’s polyester uniform was humiliating enough. I was overruled. To my surprise, I found myself enjoying the construction worker role-play thing—until an irate guest stormed up to me and began ranting about not getting a harbour view. Partway through, he stopped, blinked, and said, “What the hell are you wearing?” The hats and vests were discontinued shortly thereafter.

As part of its efforts to soften the impact of construction, Canada Line formed a business liaison communications committee comprising of representatives from local businesses and various stakeholders. I sat on this committee for two years, and at the monthly meetings I was often either trembling with rage or nodding off in boredom. We small businesses felt powerless at times, a motley crew of Dr. Dooms and Debbie Downers pitted against a slick group of big-business executives, government and spin doctors. Sometimes I wondered if Canada Line officials fantasized about working in a totalitarian regime, where residents find out about an infrastructure project when a wrecking ball crashes through their home.

Despite assurances otherwise, construction cut off direct access to the hotel’s underground parkade, obliging our valets to drive several blocks to reach the side entrance to our own building. To ease the pressure we were granted access to an area in front of the hotel to stage cars. We parked luxury vehicles there, hoping to distract from the logo-plastered hording, the dirt and the portable toilets. Canada Line officials promised to support beleaguered businesses but patronized Opus only occasionally. One of the only contractors who did stay complained about construction noise and insisted on being moved to a quieter room.

Opus lost its share of business due to construction, and we had to work hard to appease some of our guests. Yet by being transparent we built a relationship of trust with our clientele, and our guest satisfaction ratings remained high throughout. Damage is inevitable in a project of this magnitude, and Yaletown has suffered more than its share, albeit less visibly so compared to the devastation along Cambie Street. Overall I think Canada Line and its stakeholders did an admirable job of working with Yaletown businesses. Even when delivering bad news they were so courteous it was impossible to stay angry—a tactic I suspect they appropriated from the hotel industry. The construction workers were respectful too, and I didn’t see a butt crack the entire time, which admittedly was a bit disappointing.

Despite the obvious challenges, Opus has been a supporter of Canada Line from the beginning. I would have even been more enthusiastic had the station been built elsewhere—like next to one of our competitor hotels. But few areas of downtown Vancouver have been completely spared the headaches of construction in the lead-up to the 2010 Olympics. On a trip to the waterfront two years ago, I was shocked by the loud, unrelenting “Ping!” resonating from the convention centre expansion site. I asked an employee of a nearby hotel how he could stand the noise. “Noise? What noise?” he said, his upper cheek twitching with each ping.

In December 2007, at the height of construction, I left my position as general manager of Opus and passed my hardhat to my successor, Nicholas Gandossi. Today, as we celebrate the reinstatement of Davie Street, we’re filled with gratitude to our guests for being so understanding and cool. We look forward to welcoming the new clientele that this efficient, environmentally-friendly transit system will carry to our doorstep, and we hope that Canada Line will fulfill its promise to leave Yaletown even better than when construction began.

See the modified version of this post published in The Vancouver Sun.