As the District’s U Street gears up to undergo a $5 million face-lift, businesses there are wary but hopeful the city has learned its lesson from a similar project in Adams Morgan that proved to be a knife in the side of many establishments there.
“These projects are a bit like making sausages,” said Frank Smith, a former D.C. Council member who represented the neighborhood. “Going through the process it’s horrible, but when you get finished it tastes pretty good.”
The city is about to break ground on what is expected to be a roughly nine-month streetscaping project along U Street beginning at Ninth Street and extending to 14th Street. The construction will progress one block at a time, one side of the street at a time, city officials said at a Thursday news conference.
The U Street project comes just as Adams Morgan’s 18th Street corridor is recovering from a project that business owners said cut into sales by up to 60 percent while construction was camped outside their doors. Zak Drissi, owner of African art store Bazaar Atlas, told The Washington Examiner in May that he was three months behind rent as a result of the project impeding access to his store.
City leaders on Thursday were quick to distinguish the difference between the two streetscapings: The U Street project will occur over a shorter time period and is not as intrusive as the Adams Morgan project, Mayor Vincent Gray said.
“We’re looking to minimize the pain,” Gray said, adding later, “I think the eight or nine months it will take to get this done will hopefully make this more tolerable for U Street.”
He noted that a special fund with more than $2 million in it has been established to help businesses through any financial hardships they experience as a result of the city’s street work.
Business owners and operators along the corridor largely said they were ready to endure the construction because the result would be a more pedestrian-friendly, beautified U Street. But that doesn’t mean they’re thrilled about the impending parking problems on their block and tricky access to their storefronts when construction comes their way.
Kristie Lee Tyler, whose family owns Lee’s Flower Shop at 11th and U streets NW, said she just hopes construction stays on schedule and passes her block by January.
“Our only concern is that they be done by Valentine’s Day,” said.
Examiner intern Courtney Zott contributed to this report.
