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Unraveled by progress?

| May 2, 2018 1:00 AM

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

Elizabeth Poynor sells yarn at her shop on Coeur d’Alene Avenue.

It’s the soft stuff — hand-dyed, hand-picked and cozy.

Outside her front door at KnitKnit, however, a concrete and steel project that has shut down the street is cutting into her business like a pair of Pudgie scissors.

The city’s parking garage project, slated to be completed near the end of summer, is threatening to unravel her business plan.

So far, business has suffered, Poynor said.

“It’s not great, but our customers have been very understanding,” she said.

When the three-tier, 350-plus-car lot was pitched to business owners on the 300 block of Coeur d’Alene Avenue, Poynor said, it was with the understanding that at least one lane of the street would remain open.

In February however, the street was closed entirely to accommodate a crane needed to lift materials into the work site that takes up the entire half-block from alley to the streetfront.

Only the sidewalk in front of the KnitKnit store remains open for foot traffic.

It took calls and emails to get the city and the downtown association — to which she pays dues — to put up signs letting visitors know her and her neighbors’ businesses, including Coeur d’Alene Fresh and Badass Brewery, are still there, she said.

“It literally took 2 1/2 months of back and forth to get the signage,” she said.

Marla Lopez, down the street at Estate Properties, has a similar complaint. It’s not the temporary loss of street parking she agonizes over, but the visibility for her real estate business and the craft and wine shop next door.

“There are five businesses here that are highly affected by it,” Lopez said.

Both Lopez and Poynor anticipate the new garage, once it’s done, will be an asset, but it’s the until-then that worries them.

Terry Cooper, manager of the downtown association, said his group has worked together with the businesses to make sure potential customers find them.

The group has put out signs, purchased advertisement and provided parking in a nearby lot east of the affected block for customers.

“I think there’s a good effort going forward,” Cooper said.

He doesn’t attribute a slow business cycle on the block to the construction work. February and March, because of lousy weather, affected the bottom line of many downtown businesses as well, he said.

“I don’t think you can totally say it was directly because of the garage,” he said.

Frank Kaderka, the owner of Norm’s Auto Body, a shop with two doors — one faces the construction and the blocked street and another, garage-style door, faces the alley out back — said his business has been so-so since the street was closed in February.

“We woke up one morning, and it was closed,” Kaderka said. “It’s not a good situation.”

He’s also looking forward to the project’s completion.

“It might put us out of business,” Kaderka said. “We don’t know. It’s kind of a crap shoot.”

City council member Dan Gookin said he and the mayor met with Poynor in an effort to make the situation better and hear her concerns.

“Right now the street is closed and she’s not getting any business, which is sad,” Gookin said.

The completion of the $7-plus million garage is on schedule, and once it is completed will alleviate parking congestion, allowing for a lot more would-be shoppers to target downtown businesses.

In the meantime, Cooper said, “We’re doing what we can to ease their pain.”