NORTHAMPTON — Downtown business owners took the opportunity Thursday morning to express their opinions, via a town hall meeting on Zoom, about the temporary redesign of Main Street.
Konstantinos Sierros, an owner of Filos Greek Taverna, stepped up to the computer set up underneath the yellow and white striped awning of Strada Shoes and Essentials, and told the town hall he wanted the changes gone.
“The sooner the better,” he said. Behind him, the group on the sidewalk clapped.
More than 90 people — most of them downtown business owners or managers — attended the town hall, which Mayor David Narkewicz announced after at least 50 businesses signed on to a petition to reverse the changes, citing issues such as a reduction in parking and an uptick in traffic. Petitions for residents supporting and opposing the project have also circulated online.
A number of speakers at Thursday’s meeting took issue with what they said was a lack of communication from the city about the project.
“I don’t really think that the amount of notice we got is valid right now, because here we are,” said Linda Daniels, owner of Northampton Wools, who said her business has experienced issues with parking as the changes to Main Street are close by her shop.
“I would like to just talk about the lack of meaningful feedback from the business community,” said Anna Bowen, owner of Strada Shoes.
City Councilor Marianne LaBarge said she’s heard from many businesspeople who are upset about what they said is “no transparency and no communication given to many of them. I myself, I love the way the bicycle area has been put in place. But there are concerns here, Mayor.” She added, “You do listen. I’m hoping today you work out something.”
“My main concern is we cannot afford to keep losing business,” LaBarge said.
Narkewicz explained the purpose of the project was to help local business. “I want to emphasize that the goal of the project was to support the economic recovery downtown and to bring more people safely downtown [and] to provide more space to social distance,” he said.
The project included narrowing upper Main Street to one traffic lane in each direction to make way for protected bike lanes and expanded open space. The temporary changes were made in late August through a nearly $200,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and will likely last until mid-November, Narkewicz has said.
William Baczek, who owns an art gallery on Main Street, has been working downtown since the ’80s, said the project was failing to achieve the goals Narkewicz cited.
“I’ve never seen Main Street as inhospitable to visitors as it is right now,” he said.
Recently, a woman with a walker had issues getting around the concrete barriers to Zephyr Rugs, said Victoria Sheikh, an owner of the store.
The shop has lost customers, she said.
“It saddens me because I’ve been down there for 10 years,” she said “And we’ve worked very hard. This is not fair. It’s not fair. We need to survive — everybody needs to survive.”
Although there are fewer parking spaces with the new design, the number of handicapped spaces is still the same, according to Narkewicz.
Ryan Merten, a resident who works at the Roost, said business at the cafe has not been hurt by the redesign. “We’ve seen a strong uptick in business last week.”
Merten said the changes make walking downtown feel safer. “I am infinitely thankful for the wider sidewalks … Having more breathing room really counts.”
Michael Klare felt similarly. “I like having more space on the sidewalks because, frankly with COVID, I’ve been uneasy going downtown when the streets weren’t wide enough and people weren’t waring masks sometimes. I’ve been happy to have more space downtown.”
“This is exactly the kind of development I’ve been looking forward to on Main Street for decades,” said Jennifer Nery, owner of CLINIC Alternative Medicines. Though, she added, “I think there’s some problems with the process.”
Narkewicz said he wants to address the negative impacts of the project. “I am more than willing to work with downtown business and downtown stakeholders to try to address issues and problems,” he said.
No particular changes were decided at the meeting, but Narkewicz pledged to reach back out to the business community by early next week.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.