Improvement Project Delays Has Business Owners Worried
By Doug Wernet
EL PASO — Construction on the flood damage improvement project has been underway for nine months, a project city engineers say is necessary, but business owners are saying the work is keeping customers away.
Business owners agree that correcting drainage problems and repairing damaged areas is essential, but at the expense of valuable patrons, some say construction is becoming a major problem.
“It’s just put me in a horrible location. And then to have no driveway for two months know, I would have budgeted differently and I would be a lot healthier than I am now,” said Deanna Carpenter, owner of Deanna’sDesigns, oneof the retail businessesaffected by the city improvement project.
City engineer Alan Shubert said he sympathizes with business owners, but the work is necessary and only temporary.
“There’s no other way that we could do it that wouldn’t be worse for them. We’d have to close the entire street down otherwise. Thenthere’s no going to work at all. We’re doing our best to accommodate them; we know it’s a tough time,” Shubert said.
Shubert added that the roadway immediately outside of Carpenter’s business will be open on Monday so that business traffic should return to normal. The next phase however, begins on the opposite side of the street, closing part of it for the next six weeks.
