By Dave Earling, Mayor
City of Edmonds
By now, most of us are aware of a project the City of Edmonds has undertaken on Main Street between 5th and 6th. The project is going well and yes, as of this writing, we are on schedule. The weather has been perfect. Do what you can to keep the rain away, because wet weather could slow the project. The workers are working four, ten hour days, giving us three days of quiet.
Here is the most important item for us to remember. ALL OF THE BUSINESSES ARE OPEN. The city had four or five meetings with the business community before the project began to let them know about the scope of the project, get their support, and make them aware of the schedule. The businesses have been terrific because they know by having the street completely rejuvenated; they will have new 12 foot sidewalks, new lighting, a mid-block pedestrian crossing, new street amenities as well as new underground utilities. We will only lose two parking places and maintain two-way traffic.
But more than ever, they need us to patronize their businesses, NOW! I have spoken to many of the business owners and business is down. While they knew that would happen, comments have run the gamut of “we are fine” to “it has been very slow”. We need to support these good folks. We have fabulous storefront businesses, restaurants and offices in that block that take a little more work to get to, but well worth the effort.
We started the project the day after the car show and are committed to finish by November 19th, going into the heavy Christmas shopping season. In the meantime, come and be a supervising engineer for the project, but most importantly patronize these important businesses.
What we need with this type of article is a reminder of all the businesses on this block. What places are there, a short profile on the owner/manager, the type of business, their hours, is there any parking off the alley?
This would help remind us all of everything that is there and we can give our support to them during this construction phase.
Great idea, Darlene. I wonder if someone in the city could provide us with such a list?
Ask the chamber of commerce, why would we want govt to keep track of all these details. It would be just an expense that is not needed.
Darrol,
This is not a “government project”. It would just be an informal article giving a boost to the businesses along the one block on Main. And not every business in town is a member of the Chamber of Commerce so they wouldn’t have an interest in doing it either.
It just takes one person to stroll in, get a few words from each business, write up a short piece and let the town know what is still there in an article for My Edmonds News.
Good idea to have someone other then govt do this. I just would not want to put another task upon our already fully loaded staff. It would seem that if these businesses would like to take you up on the suggestion they could simply send along the information you have requested.
I believe that some have put the word out to their usual customers that they’re in need of business. A note right here would be helpful too. There are some shoppers who just do not want to do the extra walking. We just returned from the yogurt shop; their business is slow for a nice day like this.It’s a great day to visit Revelations Yogurt.