‘A rough couple of years’ for Main Street businesses

An April 29 story in the RoundTable highlighted the plight of Main Street convenience store owners Ashwin and Sima Patel, who said roadblocks during the Tapestry Station apartment project at 740 Main St. in effect cost them all their foot traffic.

The city replaced water main and sewer pipes along the street in 2021 as part of the utility upgrade, preparing for the project.

Since then, there have been two major water main projects in the area: along Main Street from Maple Avenue to Hinman Avenue, and along Chicago Avenue from Main Street to Hamilton Street – gas line relocations, spot roadway patching, as well as the work around Tapestry Station.

“It’s been a rough couple of years for Main Street,” said Katherine Gotsick, executive director of the Main-Dempster Mile, the nonprofit organization that promotes and markets the district.

Project fueled by state grant

Gotsick served on one of the advisory committees that helped plan the project in 2017. City Council members had approved a resolution authorizing the city to apply for a federally financed program operated by the Illinois Department of Transportation designed to enhance the transportation system and encourage more livable communities.

Main Street qualified as a “good fit” for the money, staff argued at the time in a memo, noting that a portion of the Main-Dempster Mile fell within the proposed project limits.

City officials, including Lara Biggs, capital planning bureau chief, and Sat Nagar, senior project engineer, also noted in their memo to City Council at the time that the area included stops for both the CTA Purple Line and Metra Union Pacific North Line.

They wrote they believed the project was a solid candidate for up to $2 million in grant money because “it would improve access to public transit, addresses pedestrian deficiencies and will make improvements to a significant commercial business district.”

Since then, there has been plenty of money shelled out as the project inched to the starting line:

• In October 2018, the city contracted with Patrick Engineering to conduct an initial $363,738 engineering study.
• In March 2020, the city engaged Patrick Engineering again for $475,000 to conduct the second phase of the study, with the project considered a good candidate to receive funds.
• In September of that year, City Council approved a resolution authorizing the city to apply for the $2 million grant, which the city was successful in receiving.
• Nearly two years later, the council approved a resolution allowing the mayor to move forward in a joint funding agreement with IDOT.
• In a May 2023 memo, Biggs recommended the council sign a resolution with the state to receive $2 million in Illinois Transportation Enhancement funding, committing Evanston for $4.78 million in matching funds for the project. The city was required to provide an additional $1.9 million of that total after construction bids exceeded the engineer’s estimate by that amount.

Biggs did not respond to an email seeking further details on the spending breakdown.

A schedule presented at a September 2019 public meeting on the project set project construction for 2021.

During construction, there were stops and starts, with the city awaiting funding.

“The water main replacement was so disruptive that it made outdoor dining almost impossible because of the noise,” Gotsick said.

The Main-Dempster group has worked to maintain accesses to the businesses throughout the different phases of the project.

In its May newsletter, the organization’s tips for supporting businesses included using Lot 24 on the 700 block of Main Street, which provides up to four hours of free parking. More short-term parking is available on the 500 block of Main, the organization pointed out.

More projects ahead

Construction in the area won’t end when the streetscape work is finished, estimated to take place in mid-September.

Officials have already completed the  phase one engineering study for a Chicago Avenue corridor project, which, like the Main Street improvements, has received design approval from IDOT. The project still has to go through the IDOT approval process to qualify for federal grants, Nagar said.

The project includes a protected bike lane on Chicago Avenue running from Davis Street to Howard Street, which will strip parking away from an already congested street.

The goal is to make Chicago Avenue “more user friendly” by improving the roadway, upgrading streetlights, smoothing sidewalks and creating two-way bike lanes protected from car traffic.

Some residents and business owners have already launched a petition drive for stakeholders like Main-Dempster, to ask the city to modify the proposed configuration of the project between Main Street and South Boulevard.

A major Red and Purple Line modernization is also in the works in which renovation or reconstruction of every Evanston station is to take place, including the one that sits off the Main-Chicago intersection.

Too much for one longtime business

At the end of March, Follow Your Nose, a pet store,relocated from 917 Chicago Ave. to 2016 Central St. in the Central Street Business District after nearly 20 years in the Chicago-Main area, in part because of all the construction.

“Last year was probably the worst in that it directed all my customers away from my store,” said Ramie Gulyas, co-owner with of the store with her husband David, about the water main project on Chicago Avenue. “They couldn’t physically get to me, they couldn’t get to [the neighboring store] Ten Thousand Villages. The sidewalk was blockaded. Nobody could park in front.

“I understand the water stuff has to get done. It’s incredibly important. But the combination of Main Street one year, Chicago Avenue last year, nobody wanted to drive down that street, everybody was rerouting, going every direction to get away from that. And that makes it hard for people to shop, and then people change their habits because it goes on for so long. And then they quit coming back to you.”

With the water main work, she said, “I had no sidewalk on our side of the street.

One customer, an older woman who lives in the neighborhood, had brought her dog in for grooming. “They [the crews on the job] had put a couple of boards down, which was not remotely helpful,” Ramie Gulyas said. As she was leaving, the woman fell in the wet cement.

“And the guys just sort of stood there and looked at her.”

“She came in covered with wet cement,” said her husband, David. “We not only had to clean her dog off, we had to clean her, too.”

The store always had lots of foot traffic, Ramie Gulyas said. When the pandemic hit, “we had a huge outpouring of support which really got us through the next year.

“And then all the construction stuff started,” she said. “And I know Evanston got the money to do it and desperately needs it to be done, but there was little to no conversation about when and how all this was going to roll out over the long amount of time this was going on, and it was not realistic.

“I was told our block would be shut down for about six to eight weeks. Our block was shut down for three months.

“There’s more construction planned for next year on Chicago Avenue, which tells me it’s going to be three years before all of this is done. And I can’t live through that.

“My feeling is, OK, the streetscape needs to be done. But why do both blocks on Main Street need to be torn up at the same time? Why can’t they figure out some better ways of detouring traffic, working in shorter blocks? I mean nobody would ever suggest that you shut down a mile of Ridge [Avenue] for construction.”