LYNCHBURG, Va. – Business owners have been through a lot lately because of the ongoing pandemic. However, for those with storefronts along Main Street in Lynchburg, there’s another culprit that’s slowing them down.
Major construction has been detouring customers away from shops for nearly two years now, and it’s going to be that way a little while longer.
“We’ve seen a decrease in customers,” Jeff Gray said. “A lot of people they hear there’s construction downtown and they don’t want to bother.”
Gray is the owner at Scene3 and he’s celebrating 20 years next month. It was just a few years ago he moved the place downtown in an effort to reach more people.
It’s been tough to do that with construction blocking street access to his front door, and with his busy season around the corner, he said he’ll have to get creative.
“Not very happy at this point,” he said. “We thought it was going to be over by October. They’ve just extended this portion of the construction project until December.”
Scene3 isn’t the only one taking a hit from the construction.
“There are only three people left on my block on both sides,” Tom Wood said.
Across the way, Wood has run Scarlett’s Main Street Antique since 1997. Construction in front of his shop finished up late last month.
“In July, they had Main Street totally torn up in front of me,” he said. “People couldn’t even get in my store.”
City leaders say the project will bring more business to downtown by converting Main Street into two-way traffic. While business owners are hopeful, they say that hasn’t been the case—yet.
“I think actually construction is probably worse than COVID, but it was a double whammy,” Wood added.
Weather delays and unexpected infrastructure problems set the city back by about a month-and-a-half. They say they hope to have the rest of Main Street and the sidewalks open again by the end of December.
“Construction, I thought that would be the end of us too,” Gray said. “But we are still here.”
The conversion of Church Street to two-way traffic started Wednesday. The conversion is expected to be complete by the first week of October.