BRIGHTON, Mich. (WXYZ) — Business owners in downtown Brighton are banding together to get more people into their stores.
This after a streetscape project, which started in January 2023, is now partially cutting off access to several storefronts along Main St. near Hyne.
In the months since crews have replaced century-old water mains and are now working to narrow the road and widen the sidewalks as a part of the $6.5 million renovation. The city says they're also planning to improve ADA accessibility from the sidewalk to the Mill Pond Park area which is currently only accessible via stairs.
The project currently requires the street to be completely closed to traffic for about two blocks where businesses are located.
"We do local spirit wear for Brighton, Howell, Pinckney, and some other surrounding cities," said Michelle Letendre who owns Ivory Vines along Main St. "I do a lot of work with the schools and with the community as a whole, so being able to be right in the heart of Brighton was really important to me because it’s very accessible to everyone coming through town."
Letendre says she spent three years at a previous location before moving her Ivory Vines storefront to the downtown area two years ago. She says since the streetscape project started at the top of the year, they've seen a significant drop in foot traffic.
"Definitely January through March was probably the worst. As the weather has gotten a little bit nicer people have tried to come out but we could go a whole day with maybe only one person walking in this store," said Letendre of the winter months. "We’re relatively new so we’re still just kind of getting ourselves going so to have had this happen a year and a half of us being here was kind of a big blow."
Some store owners say they’ve lost 30-40% of their sales since the project started in January.
The owners at Captain's on Main are just outside of the construction zone. In a few months, the four-phase project will shift to their end of the street.
"It’s been challenging as a new business down here," said Captain's on Main owner Nick Mannisto.
Captain's on Main is known for their wood-fired pizzas. Mannisto says before opening his brick-and-mortar in September 2022, he sold pizza from a food truck.
"The brick-and-mortar was to elevate the Captain's brand, have a place to make your own dough. So now we make our own dough in-house, bring it to the farmers market and now it’s a good community place where people can come and gather," said Mannisto.
The pizza makers say although construction hasn't started on their side of the street, they've already noticed a slowdown in customers. To supplement any lost sales, Mannisto says they still operate their food truck at farmer's markets and in local neighborhoods.
The store owners have also banded together creating the "Believe in Brighton" initiative where they share information about the businesses in downtown. The goal of the collaboration is to encourage people in Brighton to support the businesses along Main St.
"It is challenging but like I said (with) the community and the merchants coming together, you can kind of see at the end of all this how cool it’s going to be," said Lauren Somers with Captain's on Main.
The city says due to unforeseen issues revealed during the construction process the streetscape project is currently a few weeks behind. However they are confident, the project will still wrap up close to its original end date in November.
"We know that it is a long-term project that is shifting traffic quite a bit but what we’re doing is really exciting," said Brighton City Manager Gretchen Gomolka.
Gomolka says due to the nature of the work being done, they were unable to leave one lane/side of the road open to traffic during construction. She says additionally the original timeline of the project was slated to take much longer than the current 11-month project. Per the requests of Main St. store owners to complete the project within a year, city engineers decided to go with the current staging and closures.
The city says while they understand the challenges, the project is about long-term success.
"We really want to bring families down here, promote walk-ability and access to our stores. And the more visitors we have down here, the more successful our merchants are. With that success, is the overall success of the city," said Gomolka.
Store owners say they’re looking forward to the end result.
"I’m hoping that people will get curious and want to come down and start walking around at least in the parts that are completed," said Letendre. "We just have to adapt just like everybody did during COVID. You had to figure how do you keep your business going."
