Downtown Palm Springs street construction affecting businesses
Several businesses in Palm Springs along Andreas Road between North Palm Canyon and Indian Canyon say they’re extremely frustrated.
They say construction in front of their stores and restaurants is driving away customers. They can’t understand why the project is being done during one of the busiest times of the year.
“It ruins the experience, it ruins everything. You can’t have the compressors and bulldozers you know,” said Greek Islands restaurant owner Dimitri Maras.
He says the dust, loud noise and construction equipment on the street is costing him business.
“Customers, they call me and say ‘We tried to get into parking, we couldn’t, we took off and we left,’ so, we are losing all of our customers,” Maras added.
Owner of Teez Me, Cheri Pierson, located just around the corner, says when people see the construction and equipment on the street, people turn in the other direction.
“Summer is rough enough as it is downtown just to survive, to pay our bills, to get through it,” said Pierson.
Michael Lytar, Palm Springs City Senior Public Inspector, says it’s the Desert Water Agency that’s currently working on improving pipelines and other infrastructure underneath the street.
Because of that construction, the city had to delay their project of converting Andreas Road into a two-way street. It was slated to start in October and be done at the end of this month.
The city is now looking into another start date, and Pierson hopes the city will consider not starting until next year.
“We’d really love it if the city could wait and make it start in May or June, when that’s our slowest time of the year. We don’t need this road for that time,” Pierson said.
The president of Main Street Palm Springs, Joy Meredith, says she’s contacted the city and hopes to work with them and come up with a solution.
“We’re hoping that through Main Street Palm Springs, that we’re going to be talking to the city and helping fix this problem for those merchants,” Meredith said.
