Customers of the Jamba Juice on Davis Street, who are used to hopping out of the car and grabbing a quick smoothie, are having a harder time finding prime parking spots, Jamba Juice employee Shannon Sullivan said.
A sewer rehabilitation construction project on Davis Street and Orrington Avenue has temporarily reduced the amount of street parking in front of the store, at 630 Davis St., but for the most part, business has been the same as usual, Sullivan said.
“I don’t think it has really affected us that bad,” Sullivan said.
Traffic patterns changed on several blocks of downtown Evanston last week as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago began a sewer rehabilitation project, leading to closed lanes near the intersection of Orrington and Davis.
Evanston businesses have submitted few complaints about construction to city officials as they deal with inconveniences such as closed road lanes, fewer street parking spaces and basements smelling of sewage.
The city has tried to relieve pressure on street parking by reducing the fee for parking on the top level of the Sherman Plaza Self Park, said Marty Lyons, interim community and economic development director.
The city offered an incentive for Evanston employees to park on the upper deck of the Sherman Plaza Self Park by reducing the monthly parking rate from $85 to $50, Evanston Parking Manager Rickey Voss said.
“No one ever parked there,” Voss said. “Now it’s loaded – all 200 spaces are filled.”
While the city won’t know until the end of the month if more people have used the city’s parking garages during the sewer rehabilitation project, the increased use of the Sherman Plaza Self Park may have helped matters by alleviating demand on meter parking, Voss said.
Even though traffic whittles down to one lane in front of 57th Street Bookcase and Cabinet, 604 Davis St., it has posed minimal problems for customers, owner Noy Devenport said.
“There’s plenty of parking on other streets,” Devenport said. “It doesn’t affect foot traffic or anything.”
Construction has posed more of an issue for Vincent and Company Hair Designs, 1626 Orrington Ave., owner Sheri Muciaccia said. The quiet block the store sits on has gotten noisier and busier due to the sewer rehabilitation project and building construction across the street, Muciaccia said.
Customers have found it difficult to park near the store due to construction and sometimes come in late to their appointments because they did not allow for extra time, she said.
“It definitely affects business, but most people are aware of it,” Muciaccia said.
The store also dealt with sewer problems last Friday when sewage backed up into the store’s basement, Muciaccia said. The problem was quickly fixed, she said. Jamba Juice’s basement also smelled like sewage, Sullivan said.
However, city officials were not aware of the sewer backups, said David Stoneback, the city’s water and sewer superintendent.
The sewer rehabilitation project is part of an effort to reinforce brick sewer lines from the 1920s without causing a major disruption to downtown business by digging up Orrington and Davis in order to replace the sewer lines, Stoneback said.
“We worked with the downtown merchants and the special events (committee) to do this at a time that would be least inconvenient,” Stoneback said. “It’s better to get it done in a scheduled work environment than have a 100-year-old sewer collapse.”
