‘It’s a ghost town’: Construction hurting Kalamazoo businesses

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — Businesses in Kalamazoo are asking for the city’s help as they deal with challenges caused by construction.

Summer is the season for orange barrels but Paul Petros, the store director and co-owner of Midtown Fresh Market in Kalamazoo, said this year has been especially tough.

“I’ve been doing business for almost 20-something years, from Detroit to here, and I’ve never seen something like this,” Petros said.

For a couple of months, the market located on South Westnedge Avenue near Howard Street has been surrounded by construction and detours. This has led to a 20% drop in business.

“We’re in the grocery business. Some of the items in here, we get two to three days to sell them. If we don’t sell them they are garbage and right now, we don’t know what day we’re going to be busy, if we’re going to get busy at all. The end of the month, it’s a ghost town in here,” Petros said.

The decline in business is creating difficult decisions about staffing.

“We’ve cut overtime immediately. So nobody gets overtime, which is difficult for some of my employees,” Petros said. “We started layoffs the middle of the month, we’re trying to hold it off. I’m trying to cover as much as I can.”

Next door, Midtown Ace Hardware is also feeling the effects of all the road work.

“I have a lot of people that complain about how much trouble it is to get here,” said Stephen Frazzano, assistant manager at Midtown Ace Hardware.

Monday, several business owners and managers spoke in front of the Kalamazoo City Commission, pushing for support.

Frazzano says he wants the city to help make businesses more accessible and highlight that they’re open.

“They could do better with the signage to get people here, it’s already difficult enough,” Frazzano said.

Petros is asking for a form of financial assistance.

“I ask for what they took from me. They took my money, they took my customers, they’re taking my time and I don’t know if we’re going to survive that,” Petros said. “There’s a lot of solutions but somebody has to step forward and initiate that and I think the city has all the connections and power to initiate it and get the right people in front of us.”

During the city commission meeting Monday night, Jim Ritsema, Kalamazoo’s city manager, called offering financial support a “slippery slope.”

“There are 30 businesses alone along Westnedge and then if you start adding the other streets we’re impacting, you get to a big number really quickly,” Ritsema said.

He said the city is working on assisting businesses through things like signage and a shuttle service for the Park Street Market, which will continue through Aug. 8.

“It’s not like we’re just saying ‘No, you’re on your own.’ We really want to look at ways to help them with the means we have,” Ritsema said.

Petros hopes that something can be done soon that keeps businesses around.

“This is their life. If this fails, they lose everything from house to employees to family, it’s really tough,” Petros said.

Tuesday afternoon, businesses were invited to Midtown Fresh Market to discuss their challenges and how they will proceed.

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