ALLEGAN, Mich. — The foot traffic in downtown Allegan has been pretty consistent; however, business owners worry construction will drive it away.
"It was really bad," said Shelly Evans, an employee at Hathaway Cottage & Gifts. She told FOX 17 that the business lost several customers during the construction season last year.
With the Michigan Department of Transportation's (MDOT) new project, she fear they will suffer again, saying, "I hope that we are able to stay; this is pretty much my dream job."
This year, MDOT will be installing a roundabout at the intersections of four streets just outside of downtown. "It's actually a Michigan Department of Transportation project that will be resurfacing a very large portion of M-89 that leads right into Allegan," Downtown and Community Services Manager Parker Johnson says.
The project will start outside of city limits at 29th Street, "and comes all the way into town and meets Monroe Street, and then obviously, at that junction there of the five streets, there'll be an installation of a roundabout," Johnson told FOX 17.
The roundabout project is a continuation of last year's project, which included revamping streets, sidewalks and underground infrastructure.
"There's a section of ... Hubbard Street that connects the downtown to this new roundabout. And that will get redone as part of this project," Johnson said.
While the work is meant to improve downtown, the owner of Something Sweet For You has flashbacks of last summer.
"It was a ghost town," Trisha Winter told FOX 17. "All of the streets in the whole surrounding town were tore up, so it was very hard to navigate."
Due to lack of customers, Winter said there were times when they had to give candy away before it expired.
Although she has concerns, she has faith in the road ahead.
"We have so much potential here. This is such a great town," she said. "It's impossible to go through improvements without having some bumps and some hard times."
Johnson says this is a two-part project. The road closure is expected to start on March 25 and reopen in time for the Allegan County Fair. Stage two will be after the fair and will be done by November.
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