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Carla Hebert-Kirby
Arbor Communications
carla@arborcommunications.com
Jenny Romeyn-Romhormozi
Cupcake - A boutique for the trendy tot
641 Fourth Street
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
(707) 579-2165
www.shopcupcake.com
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Merchants affected by Hwy. 101 widening strive to keep customers despite traffic hangups
By MICHAEL COIT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The longtime Railroad Square merchant has started making house calls and is advertising more to sustain her business. Still, she fears it will be challenging to draw customers downtown for the next two years.
Golden and other merchants are concerned about how their customers will respond to multiple street closures and detours that are making it more difficult to drive downtown.
"I've already heard customers complaining because of some of the extra traffic on those side streets. They're just kind of staying away from this area altogether," Golden said. "I see it getting worse before I see it getting better."
While acknowledging the widening project is long overdue, merchants and business leaders nevertheless said the traffic headaches could be a blow to downtown's fortunes. They are working to minimize impacts and promoting the area more than ever.
Merchants also are doing more direct marketing to past customers and offering tips to guide motorists through detours and congestion. Such efforts could be models for other businesses as the project progresses along a two-mile stretch from Highway 12 to Steele Lane.
"We're using this as an opportunity to reach out to the public," said Michelle Gervais, director of Santa Rosa Main Street, a nonprofit group that promotes downtown businesses. "The Highway 101 widening is improving our infrastructure and while that work is happening we're going to have fun downtown."
The Main Street group has published a new restaurant and entertainment guide. In June, the group is launching a monthly art walk involving downtown merchants, and a lunchtime concert series is in the works, Gervais said.
Civic events could be draw
Civic events will be critical draws. For instance, the Santa Rosa Downtown Market usually brings in more than 5,000 shoppers Wednesdays from mid-May through August.
To help businesses and patrons through the highway project, a new civic group led by the Santa Rosa Chamber of Commerce hired a consultant and launched a Web site: www.santarosatraffic.com. The Web site features project, traffic and commuter updates, as well as opportunities for business promotions.
"There's going to be some significant traffic impacts. The basic concern is that we have enough information with enough advanced notice so that local businesses can plan for it," said Herb Williams, a political consultant and chamber member leading the effort.
Public works projects may be an inconvenience for residents and motorists. But that can translate into lost revenue for businesses in areas with torn-up streets and traffic detours.
The Highway 101 widening will close or choke a half-dozen streets connecting Santa Rosa's west and east sides at different periods throughout the project.
Those streets carry more than 130,000 vehicles daily. Traffic counts range from 3,000 on Fourth Street between Santa Rosa Plaza and Railroad Square to 60,000 on Steele Lane under the highway, one of the city's busiest intersections.
The project's latest phase will squeeze College Avenue under the highway from seven to four lanes for up to two years.
First came the Third Street closure. For the past six weeks, motorists normally driving Third into the heart of downtown or Railroad Square have been diverted onto narrower Fourth and Fifth streets. Those roads normally carry a third of the Third Street traffic volume.
Backups at commute time
Traffic often backs up during the busiest morning and afternoon driving times. Traffic can clog the two-lane streets, which are lined with shops and restaurants that normally draw people out of cars to walk the cozy neighborhood.
"Since a lot of the traffic has been pushed down Fourth Street, that's actually attracted as much attention as the plugging up has slowed things down," said David Sussman, co-owner of Gado Gado International, an importer and manufacturer of Indonesian architectural items.
Whether those motorists passing through return to shop is another question. The increased traffic could be discouraging shoppers from walking around as easily as before.
Before, cars mostly drove slowly through the area, looking for parking and allowing shoppers to cross streets in the middle of blocks, said Lynda Angell, president of the Historic Railroad Square Association.
"Now the cars are zooming. They have a destination somewhere else and they're already behind time because they've been detoured," she said.
Third Street is scheduled to reopen in September. But similar six-month closures will follow on Fifth and then Fourth. And the planned Ninth Street closure could overlap some of that work.
"This is the first taste of the impact of the construction. We all know what's ahead and we're just braced up for it," Angell said.
In mid-June, the main downtown offramp for drivers coming up Highway 101 from the south is scheduled to close for five months. The detour will make it more difficult for customers from Rohnert Park, Petaluma and other southern cities to reach downtown Santa Rosa.
Jenny Romeyn's south county and Marin customers will have to find a new route to Cupcake, her trendy tot clothing and accessories boutique on Fourth Street a block off Old Courthouse Square.
"It's up to merchants to help customers find them," she said.
Cupcake's monthly newsletters mailed to customers now include updates on street and highway closures and directions to the store. Romeyn is adding a more detailed downtown map to the store's Web site.
The highway work's timing isn't great for a year-old business building a customer base. But the former Los Angeles resident figures customers will find their way around the congestion much as motorists do who deal with the southland's notorious gridlock.
"You have to be optimistic," Romeyn said.
Drawing customers from across the county also has been critical to Golden's Custom Framing and Scrapbooking.
Golden wasn't hurt by her move last year to a new storefront on Third Street after the Railroad Square building where she rented space was sold. But the Third Street closure dealt a blow she is determined to overcome after 12 years in the business.
"Customers say that it's just too much of a hassle, especially if they're coming from the east side, especially a lot of older customers," she said.
So for the first time Golden has mailed postcards to customers the past two months reminding them of her new location. She also is going to customers' homes to complete orders.
"I'd rather have their business and take a little bit more of my time than to have them go someplace else," she said. "I will survive. This is what I do."
E-mails help
After six years in business, Gado Gado International has a mailing list of more than 2,000 customers and draws from the San Francisco peninsula to Ukiah. Taking nothing for granted, however, the owners warned customers of the downtown traffic snarls in an e-mail announcing a sale last month.
They plan a similar e-mail with more detailed closure and detour information this month. And they will direct customers to a new metered parking lot on a former gas station site.
"We're going to have to do more focused marketing and just make sure people know we're here," Sussman said. "Everyone is sort of preparing for this one way or another, at a minimum psychologically.".
