Residents Fed Up With Drug Mart, Family Dollar Construction

Construction vehicles; increased traffic; and noise from construction.

These are just a few of the concerns of several neighbors of the Discount Drug Mart and Family Dollar construction projects on Detroit Avenue.

Although the frames and walls are up, the projects — both expected to be finished by June — aren’t moving along quickly enough for residents on nearby Grace and Cohasett avenues.

Signs were recently posted on both streets prohibiting construction vehicles from driving on them.

Neighbors reached out to Lakewood City Hall for help.

Dru Siley, the city’s director of planning and development, said he’s working with neighbors to address some of the concerns.

Marie-France Schreiber, who lives three doors north of the Family Dollar site on Grace Avenue, wrote a letter to Lakewood Patch sharing her frustration with the progress of the development.

She’s not the only person who’s expressed disappointment with the projects.

Here’s the full letter sent by Schreiber:

For those of us who have and are enduring the construction day after day on these two sites, an estimated completion date of Summer 2013 is unacceptable.

It does not take 12 months to build a 9,000 square-foot-facility for Family Dollar, utility issues notwithstanding, and this I profess from experience — we know all too well that you severed AT&T's fiber optic cable leaving residents without TV, phone and internet service — we also know how during demolition you snapped the electric wires to the apartment building adjacent to your site and required the fire department to rope off my neighbors property to prevent sparking — we know you work 7 days a week and wake us up with your noisy equipment at 7 am, even on a Sunday morning (wait! Is that allowed near a residential neighborhood?).

 We know you interrupted Cox service to Garfield Middle School and had to work all through the night to restore service. Discount Drug Mart’s contractor seems to be making more progress than the contractor for Family Dollar with a far larger square footage.

Two facilities with similar goods and services shouldn't be slated to open so close to one another. Competition being what it is, who will attract the customer first — Family Dollar started their project in July 2012, Discount Drug Mart in November 2012 — which one will reach the finish line first?

I, for one, would like to enjoy my spring/summer outside, swinging on my porch, without all the noise and air pollution generated by inadequate project management.

I called the contractor in charge of the Family Dollar construction site (your sign flaps in the wind for all to see) and he didn't even have the decency to return my call. I think the residents of Cohassett/Grace have a right to know when you plan to bring these two projects to fruition.

It would make the construction more bearable, don't you think?