Salinas businesses struggle as downtown construction continues
SALINAS, Calif. (KION) Downtown construction is causing a big headache for some Salinas businesses trying to open back up for curbside pickup.
The city is doing major work on Main Street in Oldtown Salinas right now, aimed at revitalizing the area. But store owners say the COVID-19 pandemic, and now this, is just making staying afloat even harder.
One owner says this is a "double dagger" of sorts for her business.
"This really feels like a doomsday for a small merchant in Oldtown Salinas," said Mia Cruz, the owner of Bliss Boutique. "Not only (were) we closed but we don't have a curb for curbside."
"They definitely took away a parking lot for our customers," said Dennis Woo, the owner of Sushi Daruma.
The work on Main Street is to expand the road to two-ways, widen the sidewalks and put in plazas for visitors. Since the shelter-in-place order took effect in mid-March, traffic flow through downtown has dropped.
That made it perfect for the City of Salinas to kick off their project to revitalize Oldtown. Since most of the businesses were closed anyways, the city could shutdown all lanes to work on the road, and maybe even get done ahead of schedule.
"And get a little more work done during this time frame. We haven't determined how much actual time saving it has given us," said David Jacobs, the Salinas Public Works director.
But ever since California entered Phase 2 of re-opening the economy last Friday, allowing clothing stores like Cruz's Bliss Boutique to open for curbside pickup, the construction has added another challenge.
"If customers can't access us, there's not going to be any business regardless of whether we're open or have our curb open or have our back door open," said Cruz.
"We've been having issues with construction just because they've been hitting water pipes and we have no water for several hours," said Woo.
The city has tried helping out these businesses during the construction, opening up one lane through the areas of work with some parking and signs that say businesses are still open. But passersby still have to walk around the block and onto a pathway to get to shops behind the torn up cement.
A section of Main Street will also be closed now due to unstable conditions, according to the city on Wednesday. Owners are hoping this won't deter their customers.
"Knowing that they're doing construction, they're just like oh we're not going to come. It's not the best case for the business," said Woo.
"COVID-19 is hard enough to handle with the additional frustration of construction and a torn up street," said Cruz.
The original schedule was to have all work done by next February, but because of the extra time the city had to start, they could end up finishing up earlier.
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The project is part of a downtown revitalization plan aimed to provide more space for cars and pedestrians to travel.
But businesses are being impacted due to a lack of parking and difficulty getting to the business from the sidewalk. Customers have to travel from the beginning of the block to get to a particular store.
KION’s Josh Kristianto will have more at 5 and 6pm tonight.
