CR Downtown Businesses Suffering From Construction
When is this construction going to be done? It's affecting downtown businesses in a big way. Blocking lanes and parking spaces, and not allowing traffic through on certain roads is slowing down business to a crawl downtown.
Look, I know that the repairs need to happen of course, but it just seems like it's all happening at the same time. And not just downtown, but all over Cedar Rapids. Mount Vernon Road for example has been under construction for what feels like forever!
So again I ask, when will it end? On top of it all, with limited parking as it is downtown, the city is also blocking way too many parking spots with the red flags and often not even using them.
It just seems like poor planning on the city's part. I mean, there has been no communication to the downtown retailers. I've asked several business owners and they all say that they wish that they had just been given a heads up so that they could try to plan accordingly.
Look at the Paramount Theatre for example, you can hardly get to their front door and we walked into Marie's Jewelry & Accessories and there was dust in her entryway from the construction. This can't be easy and is definitely affecting these businesses financially at the worst time right before the holidays.
Word on the street is we can potentially expect this construction to be done by the second week of November, but I won't hold my breath.
Fingers crossed!