Merchants await opening of State Street garage

With the city preparing to begin significant construction on State Street at the end of March, Tre Michel — who owns an art gallery across the street from the future State Street parking garage — was preparing to make the best of a bad situation.

More than a month later, the city has announced the opening of the garage is once again delayed. Even as State Street has been closed to vehicular traffic for construction, Michel said business has remained at a level with which she’s satisfied. To get to that level, however, businesses in the area put in a lot of legwork.

Michel, owner of State of the Arts Gallery, spearheaded a campaign touting that State Street businesses were “making lemons out of lemonade” when street closures began. Eager to remind residents that businesses would be open even as crews installed new water mains and sidewalks, businesses posted signs along Orange and Lemon avenues and offered free valet parking during the day.

As it turns out, businesses in the area are going to have to bear the burden of construction and lost parking longer than they expected. On Monday, the city determined it will no longer be able to meet the mid-May opening date for a segment of the State Street garage; it now hopes to open a portion of the garage by late May.

Michel is resigned to the fate of having to post the attention-grabbing signs and balloons for a while longer, but she believes the effort has been important for the continued success of the area.

“I don’t know if I was blowing up the balloons because they worked or just because it was therapy, but I like to think it worked,” Michel said.

Businesses in the area understood that unforeseen circumstances arise and force schedule changes, but the construction process was made more complicated because those businesses were receiving conflicting information on the schedule from different sources, Michel said. She said those issues have been ironed out at this point, but it caused some frustration among merchants in the area.

“On a project like that, there needs to be one point person who is a communications liaison for the merchants and the construction,” Michel said. “I think the city is aware of that now and they’re really trying to cooperate.”

“I don’t know if I was blowing up the balloons because they worked or just because it was therapy, but I like to think it worked.” 

– Tre Michel, owner, State of the Arts Gallery

Chris Voelker, owner of State Street Eating House, said the construction definitely hurt business in the area. Still, she said she understood the need for another garage downtown and was looking forward to its completion. In addition to the parking and retail space at the garage, the construction also includes new water mains and sidewalks, improvements Voelker said she’ll appreciate once they’re in place.

“It was a necessary thing to happen; it makes sense to do it all at the same time,” Voelker said. “It just prolongs my personal agony — but it’s gotta be done.” 

Both Voelker and Michel were effusive in their praise for customers who pushed past the construction to continue to patronize businesses along State Street. Without the widespread desire to continue supporting local business owners, they said, the construction would have been much more disruptive to merchants in the area.

“It’s humbling to me to think that someone actually thinks about our business and says, ‘We want to come here to support you,’” Voelker said. “That’s a really cool thing.”

Opening Questions

City spokeswoman Jan Thornburg attributed the delayed opening to issues related to utilities in the area of the garage. Chief Planner Steve Stancel said it’s still unclear exactly when the opening will occur or what portion of the structure will be accessible to the public initially.

Because the last elements of the garage that will be installed are the elevators, Stancel said the city was considering opening just the first floor of the garage to serve as a soft opening.

“It works out well,” Stancel said. “There’s still a lot of work going on on State Street itself, so a soft opening is kind of conducive to the project at this point.”

Stancel said the targeted completion date for all construction on the garage is June 12.

On Wednesday, Parking Manager Mark Lyons appeared before the city’s Public Art Committee to discuss a potential project to design the interior of the garage. Lyons is interested in creating murals on each floor of the garage to help drivers remember where they parked, similar to the artwork at the Palm Avenue parking garage. 

“I want to see if the committee is interested in helping fund a call to artists that would create distinctive artwork designs for each level to use as a wayfinding system,” Lyons said.