Businesses on the 500 and 600 blocks of State Street are breathing a sigh of relief after Madison officials decided last Thursday to postpone a major reconstruction of the area, originally planned for this summer.
The project—an overhaul similar to recent construction on the other four blocks of State Street—was set to start in late May and last through early November. It especially concerned businesses heavily reliant on events such as new student arrival, football season and Halloween.
""All the businesses we have spoken to are very happy, because at that end of State Street, their business—a lot of it has to do with the university-related market, even more than other areas of Capitol Square and State Street,"" said Mary Carbine, executive director of Madison's Central Business Improvement District.
Carbine said construction will instead begin in April 2008 and finish by the time students arrive in the fall, ensuring that sidewalks will not be torn up during businesses' most profitable weeks.
""Imagine a football Saturday with sidewalks torn up,"" Carbine said. ""They have to dig out the entire street really deeply to get to the water maines and the sewers. Some of the utilities down below are 100 years old, so they have to redo all of that and then redo the sidewalks and new streetlights.""
Businesses on the two blocks in question include Underground Textbook Exchange, State Street Brats, Steve and Barry's and the UW Credit Union. Steve and Barry's Manager Mark Dunbar said he was relieved to hear of the postponement.
""We probably would've run some kind of promotion over the summer—some kind of construction sale—so we don't have to be doing that this year,"" Dunbar said. ""It's going to hurt us whether it's this year or next year, it's just that the dates for this year would've been pretty much a disaster.""
Just as Steve and Barry's would have been hurt during peak business events such as graduation and football season, Underground Textbook Exchange would have suffered during the prime time to buy books.
""Since we do 60 percent of our business for the entire year probably the last week of August and the first week of September, to have somebody outside working on the sidewalks would've been potentially pretty bad for us,"" said Underground Textbook Exchange Co-owner Troy Gerkey.
Despite the anticipated boost to businesses, Madison's Director of Development Mark Olinger said a downside to the change will be a slight postponement of the ""State Street Master Plan,"" which was drafted in 1998-'99.
He said the plan, which aims to make infrastructure more adaptable to changes on State Street, will remain relatively on schedule but may be slightly delayed.
""I think all of us would like to see the project done sooner rather than later, but I don't think any of us want to see anything that would put the shops at a disadvantage,"" Olinger said.
