Project disrupts 29th Ave.

As workers ripped into East 29th Avenue through the Lincoln Heights business district last week, merchants adjacent to the street reconstruction project saw their profits bottoming out.

Darrell Herron, manager of the Les Schwab Tire Center, 3105 S. Regal St., said his business was down to 25 percent of normal.

Traffic has been reduced to one lane in each direction on 29th Avenue between Southeast Boulevard and Ray Street and will stay that way through the end of May.

The job started with tearing out the pavement on the north half of the roadway in preparation for reconstruction. New water mains are being installed prior to repaving.

Merchants said many of their regular customers are avoiding the construction zone, causing them to lose business.

“It’s a mess,” Herron said of the traffic situation.

It’s particularly bad for the tire store because drivers of larger pickups and commercial trucks are having a hard time negotiating the narrowed intersection at 29th and Regal Street, he said.

The contractor – Eller Corp. of Newman Lake – placed its crews on overtime work schedules of six 11-hour days each week to shorten the time that businesses will be affected, city officials said. Eller has a $1.6 million contract for the job.

The construction schedule calls for completing the north half of 29th from Southeast Boulevard to Ray Street before work moves to the south half of 29th.

After that stretch is finished, crews will return to regular hours and work on 29th from Ray to Freya streets. That section will be closed to traffic during construction, which should be finished in July, said Anne Nolan, spokeswoman for the city Public Works Department.

City officials and the contactor are meeting regularly with business owners to address their concerns. The meetings are every Thursday at 8 a.m. at Applebee’s restaurant, 2007 E. 29th, where the manager has offered to open his doors for the meetings.

Even so, Herron said he fears he may permanently lose some customers after they become accustomed to new driving routes and forget about his shop at Lincoln Heights.

“The faster they get it done, the better it is for everybody,” Herron said.

About 150 businesses – many of them small and locally owned – are affected by the work, which was financed through a $117 million street reconstruction bond issue approved by city voters in 2004.

Lincoln Heights likely has the most concentrated strip of small, independent businesses anywhere in the city. For some, it’s the second year of being affected by street construction.

Last year, the bond program financed reconstruction of 29th from Grand to Southeast boulevards.

Tom Wood, one of the owners of Black Tie Coffee Co., 2910 E. 29th, said his receipts were slipping last week.

“Our two-hour morning rush was gone,” he said a few days after construction began April 16. He said the loss of revenue is a potential threat to his business.

In response to construction, Wood said, he is mounting a marketing campaign to keep customers and bring in new ones. His shop specializes in coffee drinks and homemade scones.

He has road construction specials and is offering free deliveries of orders of $20 or more. He also is giving out cards that provide new directions to his store, which fronts on 29th.

“I want to use it as an opportunity to market our business,” Wood said.

He also has tried to be a good sport, offering free coffee to some of the road workers.

A customer at the drive-up window asked him how his business was doing as a result of the work. Wood answered, “Thanks to people like you, we are doing OK.”