FeedsBusinesses plot construction year strategy
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Business owners have expressed a number of concerns about the Michigan Avenue project, including whether errant semi trucks will knock down poles and damage their buildings.Less than four days into the Michigan Avenue Reconstruction Project John Ratliff found himself virtually cut off.
His business, Lia and T.J’s bakery, is located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Sophia Street. Sophia had been closed, both at Michigan Avenue and where it intersected Main Street to the south.
“This isn’t supposed to happen yet,” Ratliff said, looking up and down the construction site for a man in a white hat. “Nobody can get in here.”
Things aren’t destined to get any easier for Ratliff and other businesses along the 1.4 mile project. The $7 million road replacement project will take an entire construction season, concluding about the middle of November.
“I just need to find a way to plan for it,” said Ratliff, whose business opened just last year.
Gayle Rediske, executive director of the Wayne Chamber of Commerce, said it’s a familiar complaint.
“Before it started, I didn’t know how bad it was going to get,” she said. “We’re only a week in and I’m afraid for our businesses.”
She said she hopes the businesses can come together and brainstorm some ideas to help get them through the long construction season. The chamber will host a meeting for business owners—and anyone else with ideas—at 8:30 a.m. on March 14 at the Wayne chamber office on Michigan Avenue.
The meeting will be designed for business owners, but anyone can attend, she said.
“We’re open to any suggestions on what we can do,” she said.
The road reconstruction project will see a completely new surface on Michigan Avenue between Howe Road and the railroad viaducts on the west side of the downtown, as well as new sewer lines and water mains beneath it. The roadway will also be narrowed to three lanes with dedicated parking bumpouts on either side. The downtown street-scape will be extended west past Elizabeth Street, too, with brick pavers installed and decorative streetlights put in.
It’ll look nice when it’s done, Rediske said, but it could be difficult for businesses in the meantime. She said the meeting next Wednesday is designed to be positive, not negative, though.
“We don’t want to hear any complaints,” she said. “It’s not going to change the fact that there’s going to be construction. We are just trying to be creative.”
Some early suggestions call for new signage that would point the way to the downtown business district. Rediske said she would look into a temporary relaxation of the city sign ordinance, too, so businesses could attract additional attention during the difficult construction year.
“We’ve got some ideas already,” she said, “but the more people we get in here, the more ideas we’ll get.”
For more information, call the chamber at (734) 721-0100.
