Road work is a nuisance for shops
By Doug Smeath
Deseret Morning News
In January, Limelight Tanning Salon on the corner of 200 South and 400 West was doing great business. Now, owner Cory Clough says he might have to close up shop and move to a new location after being hit hard by road construction.
Laura Seitz, Deseret Morning News
Some store owners say light-rail construction at 200 South and 400 West, near The Gateway, has hurt business.
He said his business, which has operated in the Dakota Lofts building just east of The Gateway for three years, has felt the impact as the Utah Transit Authority has torn up 400 West to extend its light-rail line to the newly opened intermodal transportation hub.
"There's a major decrease in business due to the fact that there's no parking for the clients," Clough said.
This past week has been especially tough. Crews working to replace an underground 1920s-era gas line discovered that an old electrical conduit lay in a spot different from where they thought it would be. The result was an unexpected closure of 400 West for much of the week, although crews opened the road a few times for Jazz games and a concert.
Businesses in The Gateway area are hunkering down for what is expected to be about another year of road work while UTA extends its TRAX line, which currently ends at 400 West on South Temple. The extension will run down 400 West to 200 South, then down 200 South to 600 West, where it will run to the intermodal hub.
While some businesses, including Limelight and others that front 400 West and 200 South, have reported varying degrees of trouble, stores inside The Gateway mall itself say business doesn't seem to have been affected.
"If someone's going to drive all the way to this mall, they're not going to turn around because they see construction," said Tiffany Nelson, manager of the Pears boutique.
She and employees at other stores in The Gateway said some mall workers have had trouble finding places to park on the street because of the construction, and the mall lots fill up faster. It's also harder for customers to make quick in-and-out trips because of the traffic.
Bill Knowles, whose position as construction ombudsman is the result of a partnership between Salt Lake City and the Salt Lake Chamber, said traffic counts at The Gateway are actually up, and most businesses he meets with report they are surviving.
On Friday afternoon, there was no shortage of shoppers, and they seemed only mildly put out by the construction.
"I love The Gateway, so it's worth it," said Midvale resident Shanda Adams, who had some trouble finding parking in the crowded underground lot. "If I had known how busy it would be — how hard to get around — I might have come a different time."
Even among stores that front the impacted roads, much of the impact has been relatively minor, Knowles said. Among those he expected to be harder hit are restaurants, especially the ones on 400 West like Biaggi's and the Dodo.
"A couple of restaurants right there were reporting some declines, but given their location at kind of ground zero of situations going on last week, they were off 10 percent," he said. "That's not a good thing, but it's a lot less than I had expected to hear."
Knowles and Chad Saley, who oversees public involvement on the TRAX extension project, said there have been a number of outreach efforts to keep area businesses in the loop, to solicit advice and keep abreast of problems and to steer business to the area.
"It's going really pretty well," Saley said. "Obviously, with construction there are impacts. That's something we obviously can't avoid."
For businesses that have been most affected, it's not just a matter of losing business. Clough said light bulbs in some of his tanning beds have been broken, and he believes it is the result of the vibrations of heavy equipment operating outside his door.
Saley said Clough has filed a claim and it is pending. "If it truly was due to the construction, we will absolutely reimburse him and compensate him for anything that was damaged," Saley said.
He said he hopes Limelight and other struggling businesses will hang on through construction and continue to work with UTA and Knowles, because once the TRAX line is completed, it will help bring in customers.
Saley said UTA is in the process of trying to work out a way to provide non-Gateway businesses that are most hard-hit with Gateway parking validations so customers will have somewhere to park during the worst of the construction.
He expects the bulk of the destructive work — digging up roads to deal with utilities and infrastructure — to be finished in the next few weeks.
Crews will then start restoring the street, and by May or June, much of the road that's been torn up will be fixed. Work will then shift to the middle of the street as crews begin the work of laying track.
The extension is expected to be done in February or March 2008, with the line up and running in April 2008 to coincide with the opening of the FrontRunner commuter-rail line, which will also run to the intermodal hub.