KALAMAZOO, MI — Maria Brennan was in tears.

It was the last week of June, and Brennan — owner of Victorian Bakery in Kalamazoo’s Northside Neighborhood at Park and Ransom streets — had just learned both Park and Ransom would be closed through August to upgrade electrical lines for the new event center in downtown Kalamazoo.

“In the six years that we’ve been here, there have four years where they’ve done major road work,” she said. “It’s like we need an emergency plan every year.

“Last year, they closed the road for five weeks before Thanksgiving” to work on nearby railroad tracks, she said. “We lost about 30% of our business” during what is typically a bakery’s busiest season.

Now to have another closure was putting Brennan over the edge.

“I’m just so tired” of trying to remain financially viable in an environment where her customers struggle to access her bakery, she said.

Brennan is not alone. As Kalamazoo city officials cheer the tens of millions of dollars flowing into the city for badly needed infrastructure upgrades, local business owners are increasingly frustrated by the economic impact of street closures.

“It’s a disaster,” said Paul Petros, owner of Midtown Fresh Market along South Westnedge Avenue, which is undergoing major reconstruction. He’s part of the Gamsho family that also owns Park Street Market, next door to Victorian Bakery.

Petros estimated business is down 25% at Midtown Fresh and even more at Park Street Market.

“I just got my property tax bill — $17,000 and I have to pay up by July 31,” Petros said. “But I’m down $60,000″ for June.”

He’s had to cut hours of employees and take on some extra shifts himself to balance the books, he said. “This is my baby. My house is on the line.”

While road closures have long been a headache for local businesses, it’s a bigger issue now because the number of construction projects have substantially increased, thanks to state and federal infrastructure bills approved in recent years.

That has allowed Kalamazoo to embark on a massive overhaul of city roads, water and sewer lines, sidewalks, curbs and street lighting, among other infrastructures. City officials estimate the projects, which got started last year, will take eight to 10 years to complete, wrapping up between 2031 and 2033.

“The city has been really blessed with getting a lot of funding, significant funding, that puts the city in position that it can update things like water mains and sewer lines,” some of which are more than a century old and include environmental hazards such as lead pipes, said Antonio Mitchell, director of the city’s Community Planning and Economic Development department.

“This is the start of literally 10 years of construction in the downtown metro area,” Mitchell said. “But what’s great are the improvements that will happen from these construction projects.”

Addressing complaints

Mitchell acknowledges the city is getting lots of complaints about street closures.

Part of the problem, he said, is the shifting nature of the closures — just as residents adjust to a detour route, construction shifts and the detours change.

“There’s literally construction everywhere in the whole county” because of the flow of infrastructure dollars, and it’s not limited to here, Mitchell said. “The governor is happy because those construction projects are finally happening. But it’s very painful for businesses as well as the public in general because of the number of roads closed and the detours.”

Complicating matters, he said: The state and federal dollars have to be used in a timely manner; some areas are getting multiple improvements, which increases closures in the same vicinity, and the work can’t be done in winter.

“There’s a rapid amount of construction happening all at the same time because there’s only a short amount of time you have,” he said.

Meanwhile, the city is taking steps to address business owners’ concerns, Mitchell said. Among the efforts:

• Biweekly meetings with business stakeholders to provide construction updates, answer questions and get feedback
• Signage along detour routes to direct drivers to specific businesses
• A marketing campaign to urge residents to go to businesses in construction zones, via radio ads, social media posts and web pages
• A free shuttle service between Park Street Market and Galilee Baptist, Mount Zion Baptist and First United Baptist churches. The shuttles run on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
• Working with Western Michigan University to study how to maintain economic vitality during the decade-long construction projects

Not enough?

Petros thinks the city should be including money in their budget to help compensate businesses such as his for their losses.

“They spent a million dollars on bike lanes that nobody uses,” he said, money that could have been been spent on supporting local businesses, in his opinion.

“You’re telling me that ads on a radio station will help? That’s nothing,” he said. “You can’t pay people to drive in bad traffic, and that’s the truth.”

Many people simply don’t have the time or patience to navigate complicated detours, he said, and will simply find somewhere else to shop.

“It’s very frustrating, and it’s even harder to get customers that come back after they’ve gone,” Petros said.

Petros said his family committed to operating the grocery stores in the Vine Neighborhood and on the Northside, where they are the only supermarkets.

But he noted supermarkets operate on a very small profit margin, and it’s especially tight for independent groceries that don’t have the economies of scale of Meijer or Walmart.

Indeed, both the Midtown Fresh and Park Street Market sites have a troubled history.

The Northside went years without a neighborhood grocery and it was a huge deal when Felpausch opened a store at Park and Ransom in 2003, only to close six years later.

The Gamsho family reopened the store in 2010 as Park Street Market. In 2018, they opened Midtown Fresh Market in a space vacated by Harding’s Marketplace in 2015. The Gamsho redeveloped the Harding’s site into strip mall that now houses Midtown Fresh, Midtown Ace Hardware, Midtown Coffee Cafe and an Oak Street Health Clinic.

“It takes a lot of guts to invest in the community, and we’re doing it,” Petros said. “And people do love our stores. But we can’t take month after month after month of abuse from construction. For us to lose any customers at all, that hurts.”

Mitchell said the federal and state infrastructure grants don’t include money to compensate businesses.

“There’s no additional dollars to assist businesses directly,” he said.

Community’s role

Mitchell readily acknowledges the issues, particularly for businesses in more fragile neighborhoods such as the Northside.

“We’re very fearful of the impact on businesses,” he said. “That’s why we’re trying to ramp up initiatives such as the additional signage and marketing campaigns.

“But there’s no magic bullet,” he said. “You need to strike what iron is hot and get that development done. The sad part is, is that it does deter some folks (from trying) to access those areas.”

Vice Mayor Jeanne Hess, who lives in the Westwood Neighborhood, said she’s making a point to shop at Midtown Fresh.

“It’s important to have awareness in the community about the projects — why the projects are happening, how the projects are happening, the timelines,” she said. “Also awareness about how important it is that we continue to support local businesses” in the construction zones.

“I’ve been intentional about going out of my way, doing the detours, to get to Midtown Fresh and just did a weekly shopping trip there,” she said. “If more people did that, to kind of tide them over, that would help. That’s our job (as residents).

“This too shall pass. It’s the cost of progress and we need that progress.”

It’s a delicate balancing act for the city, Mitchell said.

“We got enough money, now, where we can do all the infrastructure replacements at the same,” he said. “So it’s a plus and a minus at the same time. We get to enhance and make it better. But will you kill the businesses off before you get it done?”

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