Good or Bad for Business?

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Story Published: May 28, 2009 at 11:31 PM PDT

By Stacy Lilienthal

The city of Grandview hopes a downtown revitalization project will bring more people into town. But businesses fear it will bring less people during construction.

And they say the timing is already bad because of the economy.

Ace Hardware in Grandview has had flat line sales since last year. Owner Jim Michener fears weeks of construction blocking his business will push sales into the red. "I could lose 5, 10, 20, 30%. We don't know." he says.

"It all comes down to convenience. Most of the businesses we talked with say they worry people won't be able to carry their product if they have to park further from their business." reports Stacy Lilienthal. Especially for the bigger items found at a hardware store. "Who wants to carry 3 gallons of paint two blocks?" asks Michener.

But the city fears that opinion is short sighted. "It's important to realize the long term benefits. What motivated this project is economic development, increasing the value of the properties, and stimulating investment." says Grandview City Administrator Scott Staples. He says the revitalization project means they can fix old water lines, roads, and expand sidewalks at once. Construction is estimated to create about 50 temporary jobs and 80 permanent jobs after the project is finished in 5 years.

At the meeting, everyone remained calm but some were still concerned. The meeting is just to update businesses on the projects progress. They don't have the money in place yet.

But business owners like Michener say the longer they can hold off on it, the better. "We're going to try hard. We want them to continue to shop with us." he says.

So far the city has already raised a total of a million dollars from the county and state. If the federal government decides to grant them more than $2 million in stimulus money, they might break ground as early as this summer.

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