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A section of Grand Avenue will reopen Tuesday after five months of road construction that interrupted some retailers' bottom lines.
The city will hold a celebration event from 4 to 6 p.m., marking the reopening of the area — Grand Avenue between Macalester and Wheeler streets.
Jennifer Gordon is the operations manager at the French Meadow Bakery & Café located on Grand and Macalester Street South. She said the summer months with road construction outside the restaurant were “not ideal.”
“We just had a lack of business — customers not wanting to either go through the mess or not being able to figure out how to get through it,” Gordon said. “It’s been challenging.”
One business, Roseline’s Candles, didn’t survive the construction. They closed on Aug. 31.
The café’s busiest time of year is the summer, she said. The silver lining, she said, was seating in French Meadow’s rear patio, away from construction.
“When people made it in,” Gordon said, “They still had a lovely experience in our back patio. But it was just getting people here.”
Gordon says business has picked up in the last couple of weeks. Some businesses braced for the worst and were pleasantly surprised.
Scott Fares is the co-owner of the independent arts supply store Wet Paint. The store, at the corner of Cambridge Street and Grand Avenue, has been around for 50 years, Fares said.
He said he thought the project would be catastrophic on the business, but the art supplies on offer and the store’s location helped out.
"When they're coming to the art supply store, have already set their navigation to come to us and they just had to navigate that last block or two,” Fares said, “they're not likely to turn around and go to another art supply store."
Fares also said the north and south streets were kept open.
“We’re right on the corner, so our customers just have to navigate that last block,” he said. “We've got a little parking in the back, which helps with where to park when they come to see us.”
Fares also says the city was communicative with him during the project.
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