The city expects to open East Third Street to two-way vehicular
and pedestrian traffic opened Tuesday.
The city expects to open East Third Street to two-way vehicular and pedestrian traffic opened Tuesday.
Business owners are relieved.
“The worst part of it was the dirt, everything being dusty,” Dezign Salon owner Julie Wolfsmith said of the $3.7 million Third Street Promenade project.
Jointly paid for with Morgan Hill Redevelopment Agency funds and a $1.7 million Metropolitan Transportation Commission grant, the promenade project widened sidewalks and added attractive landscaping and a multipurpose event center between the eastbound and westbound lanes.
The project is within budget, but behind schedule. The promenade was originally supposed to be complete in November. Weather setbacks – like the October storm that drenched Morgan Hill with seven inches of rainwater – and change orders pushed the contract back by more than a month.
Fifteen days were added when weather caused the delayed arrival of concrete pavement, and the need for more curing time.
In July and November the city spent almost $27,000 in two change orders to “mitigate unsuitable subgrades.” City engineer Yat Cho explained that the soil wasn’t as compact as they expected so they had to remedy that.
The city spent another $10,000 in October to remove and replace sick trees in the Monterey median.
These costs contributed to $85,000 in added charges, about a fourth of the contingency allowed for the project, according to city documents.
The added days weren’t helpful to businesses like Ragoots, an eatery popular with the business lunch crowd located at the northwest corner of Monterey Road and West Third.
“Our lunches were severely impacted, and what we heard from our customers, anecdotally, is they just didn’t want to deal with the construction,” co-owner Colleen Isaacs said. “People have a limited timeframe to get in, find parking, order and get out.”
Isaacs said she hoped the city would be advertising as they planned to do.
“It usually takes people a while to figure out when construction is completed and stuff.”
Isaacs said that toward the end of Third Street construction, after the city closed the parking lot of the former Simple Beverages store at the southeast corner of the intersection, lunch business was down 75 percent.
“There have been days where we wondered if people would come in. There haven’t been days where that’s happened, but clearly business was slower.”
The slowdown caused them to cut back hours for their employees by 25 percent, she said.
Wolfsmith sympathized with businesses that, unlike her salon, depended on dining rushes. Main Street Bagels, next to Dezign, for example, had a dependable morning rush before the construction began.
“We’re by appointment only, so it didn’t affect me as much as someone running in for a coffee,” she said.
David Trinh, owner of Main Street Bagels, said business has been slow for the past six or seven months but he’s excited for the street to be finished.
“There’s a new energy in, and you can set forth your ideas,” he said. Trinh plans to use the patio area for displaying artwork for sale and other projects he hopes will draw customers.
Trinh commended the city for taking constructive criticism from business owners like himself throughout the process.
Wolfsmith, who along with her husband Dave Wolfsmith owns the building Dezign Salon is located in, has been one of the few business owners to praise the project. She’s delighted that construction is nearly complete.
“It looks so great. I knew it would be nice, but it’s just so grand looking,” she said.
One nearby business did close during construction. Legends Bar & Grill closed Dec. 31, but owners are mum as to why they chose to close the business, which opened in early 2008 and was prone to late night revelry.
Gilroyan Jodi Abery, who fell trying to cross the construction project to get to Poppy’s Fish, Poultry and More shop on the south side of the street, has been in physical therapy twice a week since the August spill. Abery said she’s had knee problems before, but her neck issue – when she turns her neck a certain way, her fingers go numb – is new.
“I’m pretty aggravated in general. There were no excuses for that site being the way it was,” Abery said. That said, she hasn’t decided whether she’ll file a claim with the city for reimbursement for her physical therapy bills. So far her insurance is paying for the therapy. “Sometimes you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and bad things happen. Some part of me really believes that. Other people tell me I should (file a claim). I think I’m always positive about things working out. I thought this would just resolve itself.”
Abery’s fall brought attention to the project’s scattered signs, which at the time informed passersby that Third Street businesses were open during construction and where they could park, but not how to get from parking lots to the businesses. The city rectified the problem with improved signs directing Poppy’s customers along Monterey Road and around to an alternate entrance at the back of the building.
