The company that is developing a controversial shopping center at the corner of Highway 305 and High School Road has set up its 24-hour complaint hotline for the project.

Visconsi, an Ohio-based development firm, received the city’s OK to build a seven-building, 61,890-square-foot commercial complex on an 8.16-acre property across High School Road from McDonald’s earlier this year.

Work on the site is now expected to soon begin. The city issued a clearing permit for the project Aug. 13, and Visconsi had hoped to begin selected tree removal Monday, Aug. 18.

That work has apparently been pushed back, however, as protestors have gathered near the development site since Saturday and a Bainbridge teenager began a “tree sit” protest in a perch about 70 feet off the ground in one of the Douglas firs on the property Monday.

When the shopping center received its final go-ahead from Hearing Examiner Stafford Smith in late March, Smith ordered Visconsi to set up a round-the-clock hotline, at a time agreed to by the city.

In an email to the city Aug. 13, Shawn Jurisch, Visconsi’s engineering manager for the project, said the hotline had been put in place.

The hotline phone number is the company’s main office number in Ohio, 216-464-5550.

Jurisch said calls will be routed depending on the time they are made:

“Between our normal working hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday, the call will be answered by a receptionist who will appropriately direct the call. If there is an emergency at the site after our normal working hours, the caller will be prompted to hit ‘1’ and will be directed to an after hour’s answering service attendant who will contact the appropriate person within our organization,” Jurisch wrote.

“If there is a non-emergency at the site after our normal working hours the caller will have the ability to leave a message in the general mailbox. The message will be forwarded to the appropriate person the next business day,” he added.