Three Davenport Street business owners complained Monday night about the slow reopening of that street as part of the downtown Streetscape project.
Aaron Schultz, Jeanne Pederson and John Stoehr all complained that the extended work on the street caused extreme financial difficulties.
Schultz, owner of Big Daddy's hoped the city would provide better communication to local businesses when delays happen...
"....when the plans for this project were first presented to members of this community, Davenport was going to be the first street ripped up and the first street reopened. When the second timeline was released, the public was given a completion date of July 29 for Davenport Street. That obviously didn't happen..."
Davenport Street is said by officials to be fully reopening soon.Schultz said his business was off anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent from a year earlier largely he says because access was difficult during construction. Pedersen owns the Festive Frog and asked the city for $600 dollars to offset her losses. She says she relies heavily on foot traffic and says she likely won't be able to continue.
John Stoehr at John's Jewelry wrote asking the city council to wonder how long they could survive without some money coming in. The city council took no action. Last week a project official said this year's portion of the work will be done around October 31
