CREDIT: EMILY STEWART
Ward 13 Councillor Arielle Kayabaga and London Mayor Ed Holder place the last brick into Dundas Place. London's first flexible street is made up of 700,000 interlocking bricks.

Ward 13 City Councillor Arielle Kayabaga and London Mayor Ed Holder placed the last brick into London’s first flexible street to celebrate the end of its main construction.

Dundas Place reopened to traffic on Dec. 9. Merchants, city staff, and residents all waited to see the placement of the last and 700,000th brick outside of the London Public Library Central branch. Kelly Scherr, the engineer for the City of London, said that the Dundas Place construction cost $16 million to $26 million including hydro work.

Holder said in a speech prior to the brick laying that there will be a few finishing touches added in the winter and spring and an official grand opening celebration scheduled for spring 2020.


As a flex street, Dundas Place is open to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers and two-way traffic. The street can also be shut down for special events like Canada Day and Jurassic Park, where Londoners cheered for the Toronto Raptors to win the NBA Finals.

“Today, it’s all about celebrating business and giving the street back to our merchants, to our pedestrians and cyclists and drivers after two years of construction from Ridout to Wellington,” Holder said.

A few of the merchants along Dundas Place spoke about their excitement that the flex street is complete and shared some of their future plans in their speeches.

Angie Murphy, the owner and executive chef of Grace Restaurant, said the restaurant opened mid-construction because they support Dundas Place.

“We’re a local food business. We support local farmers. We support our local economy,” she said. “We support the local talent of our culinary students and people that are in the culinary industry. We support local creativity and most of all, we support Downtown.”

Braham Wiseman, owner of Heroes Comics, said he’s looking forward to holding Free Comic Book Day on Dundas Place the first Saturday in May. Jonathon Bancroft-Snell, owner of Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery said that all shops along Dundas Place will be open between 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 13 as part of a holiday showcase.

“Come on down, because some of us have been hurting as this has been going on, but now everything’s going to be wonderful,” Bancroft-Snell said.

Kayabaga hosted a community event on Dundas Place that featured yoga, a variety of vendors and a performance from the TAP Centre for Creativity to bring people together during back to school season. She can see Dundas Place host community events, pop-ups, carnivals, and festivals. Several people have already suggested events involving food, art, and music.

She said the Canada Day and Jurassic Park events were the most successful events on Dundas Place so far.

“It was like everybody in London had heard about it and were down here,” Kayabaga said of Canada Day. “It was really great and the Jurassic Park event that we had when we were watching the NBA Finals was also amazing to see different demographics of people just being able to enjoy sports together.”

Savanah Sewell, the manager of Dundas Place, said that with eight events held on Dundas Place already, it’s tough to say which one she enjoyed the most.

“Every single one of them was a learning curve for us and every single one of them was different, really, so I feel like I’m a parent. I can’t really say which one is my favourite child,” she said. “I love them all. I love them all equally.”

There will be several meetings with stakeholders like Fanshawe College, the London Public Library, London Music Hall, and the TAP Centre for Creativity, to find out what they would like to see for Dundas Place. The Dundas Place website’s events page will be updated within the New Year to announce events.