The City of Nanaimo anticipates keeping Bastion St. where it meets Commercial St. closed until roughly early June. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

Staying closed

Busy downtown Nanaimo intersection to remain closed for vehicular traffic

Mar 19, 2025 | 5:25 AM

NANAIMO — Vehicles won’t be passing through the key Bastion/Commercial St. intersection anytime soon.

Scheduled to re-open at the end of February after its closure on Jan. 2, the City of Nanaimo pivoted, electing to keep the intersection shuttered for vehicular traffic for several more months as Commercial St. revival work continues.

James Knight, the City’s capital project management specialist, anticipates the intersection re-opening in early June.

“Leaving it closed just gives us better flexibility to take advantage of favourable weather, availability of sub-contractors, and also to move materials and personnel across the site more easily,” Knight told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Knight maintains overhauling Commercial between Wharf and Church streets is scheduled to be vastly completed by the end of May.

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“We still plan on having all of the road works completed in time for the night market, they’ll still be a little bit of work left — landscaping and maybe installing some benches and garbage cans, things like that — but substantially complete before night market.”

The Commercial Street Night Market, a popular annual summer tradition in Nanaimo drawing thousands of weekly visitors, is scheduled to begin on Thursday, June 19.

Following the discovery of problematic old mine voids in late September pushed closer to the road’s surface than anticipated, Knight said mitigation work of drilling and plugging crevasses was finished at the end of January.

He said cameras mounted to drilling equipment showed no large sub-surface mine voids and less grout was required than expected to stabilize the soil beneath Commercial St.

“In the next few weeks you should see curbs going in and at that point it’s going to really start looking like a street again,” Knight said.

Emphasizing underground projects can lead to unexpected delays, Knight conceded a considerable amount of their built-in project timeline contingency was taken up by the mine void issue.

Rendering of what Commercial St. looking toward the Great National Land Building will look like by this spring. (City of Nanaimo)

As excavators, dump trucks and work crews continue addressing Commercial St., all affected businesses remain open within the construction area.

Launched in early September, crews are modernizing the key section of Commercial St. to increase accessibility and enhance downtown events, as well as replace a watermain line.

The project aims to establish a more pedestrian-friendly area, which will include event-ready, street level sidewalks and additional public gathering areas.

Future phases will extend streetscape enhancements along the entirety of Commercial St., while also revitalizing public spaces, including Diana Krall Plaza and Dallas Square Park (war memorial cenotaph).

Free two-hour weekday parking is available on levels two and three of the nearby Bastion Street Parkade, while complementary two-hour parking is also available in the Commercial Street area during the construction work.

Sidewalks and pedestrian access remains open for impacted Commercial St. businesses. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

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