Downtown Lafayette businesses face sidewalk disruptions head-on

LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Downtown businesses finding themselves in the middle of construction still offer a welcome mat. You just may need to look closer for the front door.

Even though construction and road work on Lafayette's Main Street have upended the entrances of some downtown businesses, Sergei Vasili, the owner of Scones & Doilies Bake Shop, said the impact has not been all that negative. Vasili is making the best of the situation.

“It’s a little bit of a challenge, but it did not affect us a lot. We lost some of the parking spots.” Vasili said.

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Miranda Halsema, owner of Halsema Custom Crafts, had some concerns about the loss of parking in front of her woodworking shop and studio, but welcomed events that directed pedestrian traffic to downtown.

“Warmer weather helped bring people out, and doing the Gallery Walk helped bring people into the store.” Halsema said.

The Gallery Walk is an event hosted by The Art Federation, formerly known as Tippecanoe Arts Federation. Halsema is one of dozens of merchants taking part in the First Friday Lafayette events, which offers "art, music, food, friends, and fun in a city-wide celebration of everything we love about Lafayette," according to the organization's website. Such an event was held May 8.

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A parking lot in the back of the downtown business has allowed customers to park close by or drop off items that need to be repaired, Halsema said, thus enticing people to explore the services of the craft shop while the construction project removes convenient parking on the street.

While Vasili and Halsema said they have not faced severe repercussions from the construction project, other business owners have faced hardships.

Cheng Pan, the owner of Kitami, a Japanese Yakiniku and Sushi restaurant, has seen his business falter considerably due to the departure of college students and construction occurring at the same time.

His landlord, who owned the business previously, told him profits would drop between 10% and 15% at the end of the school year when Purdue University students left campus for the summer.

However, the added construction project caused profits to drop significantly more than he initially expected. Pan estimates the construction has contributed around a 30% drop in the traditional amount of foot traffic he would receive on a daily basis, and he's seen an almost 70% drop in revenue.

The restaurant opened in this spring, and Pan recalled how successful those early days were.

“When we opened in March," Pan said, "we had no menus. We did not have a liquor license. We did no advertisements. We just turned on the open sign and people came in. We got busier every day.”

Pan, in the restaurant business for decades, said he has never experienced a nosedive like this before.

“I have been in the restaurant business for 20 years, since I was 18 years old. I owned my first restaurant when I was 19. I have never seen a restaurant drop that fast. Usually, it occurs little by little over time, but a drop like that is jumping down a mountain,” Pan said.

With the construction on Main Street removed parking at the front of his building, Eight Street would normally be another option. That street is closed as well, with construction vehicles parked there, making it more difficult for customers to park close by. That puts his restaurant at a disadvantage, he said.

“The issue is the parking," Pan said, "not the management, not the food. Everybody is happy here. The main issue is the construction.”

When the restaurant opened in March, average revenue was over $3,000 in weekday sales, Pan said, but since the construction project got underway, the restaurant collects $1,000 or less each day.

The Journal & Courier asked Dennis Carson, Lafayette's director of economic development, if Pan's situation was an unintended byproduct of downtown construction.

"One of the big things that we had to do was put in a new storm sewer in, which (runs) down the middle of the street. We had to close the roads to do that because there have been a lot of drainage issues along Main Street and that really needed to be addressed," said Carson.

"Whenever we have construction downtown, particularly when we're doing streetscapes, it will have an effect on businesses.

"It does have an effect and we try to minimize that as much as possible. For this particular streetscape project, we're having the contractor concentrate on Main Street and get that finished as quickly as possible, and then the rest of the project is Eighth Street."

To improve Pan's situation, the contractor built a wooden bridge connecting his store to the street. Foot traffic, he said, has not improved.

The construction on Main Street is expected to be completed by the beginning of July, Carson said, while construction on Eighth Street will continue until later this year.

Even though times are tough now, Pan does not want to terminate employees, saying he doesn’t believe it is the correct way to deal with a temporary situation.

Michael Hemmerle is a 2022 Hoosier State Press Association Pulliam intern for the Journal & Courier. Hemmerle can be reached by email at mhemmerle@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette, Indiana businesses face sidewalk disruptions head-on