Merchants Say Street Project Has Put Them on Road to Hard Times

Gem store proprietor Don Baird feels he’s caught between a rock and a dirt place.

Baird and other merchants in the 4100 block of Olive Avenue claim their businesses have suffered dramatically because of street construction and road barricades around their stores in the Media District, the headquarters of several film studios.

“The business should be growing right now, and it’s doing the exact opposite--it’s dying,” said Baird, 44. “We’ve only been here a little over a year, and we were still trying to build a base of clients. Now I don’t know if that will ever happen. I’m really angry.”

Olive Avenue in front of the businesses has been torn out, leaving a dirt path and eliminating virtually all parking. The stretch is also considered to be a continuation of Pass Avenue.

Traffic restrictions and barricades erected on neighborhood streets to prevent shortcut commuters have also taken away customer parking spaces, the merchants said.

Officials of a Bank of America branch told city officials that the construction and barricades are to blame for about a 50% drop in business. Joyce Noshkin, 49, who has owned the Piglets sandwich shop on the block for 15 years, also said business has fallen off about 50% since the street was taken out six weeks ago.

And Bruce McMorris, who runs James Motor Sports auto accessory store, said business is so bad that he is quitting business.

“I was barely making it as it was,” said McMorris, 48. “The economy has been lousy. But this has really hurt me.”

The merchants have taken their complaints to City Hall, saying that officials failed to advise them of the magnitude of construction and the potential effect on their businesses. They fear construction could extend into the critical Christmas shopping season.

Although Mayor Michael Hastings and other city officials did not deny that the construction had probably affected businesses, Hastings said the city had not been negligent. He said the construction is part of a longstanding plan to reconfigure a triangle-shaped intersection at Pass and Olive avenues near the stores. “This is a public safety issue, and we’ve never put it behind closed doors,” Hastings said.

Steve Helvey, assistant Burbank city manager, said: “These businesses relied exclusively on on-street parking, which could be gone at any time. It’s a resource that can be good at times, but not a resource that a merchant should base their entire business on.”

Ora Lampman, the city’s public works director, said: “There are a lot of sharp angles in that intersection, and it’s always created bad traffic and safety problems. We really needed to correct that.” Under the configuration, Warner Boulevard, which is also next to the stores, will be closed. Pass and Olive avenues will meet at right angles, and the torn-up stretch of Olive Avenue will be replaced and landscaped.

Completion of the $300,000 project, paid for by Warner Bros. as a condition of building a nearby office building, has been delayed, Lampman said.

City Traffic Engineer Ron Morris said the contractor had encountered difficulty moving a gas main. He said there were also problems with damp soil. Merchants said they had been told that the project would be completed in September. But Morris said the construction was only about a week behind its planned mid-November completion schedule.

Warner Bros. officials said they sympathize with merchants and will help arrange additional parking nearby.

Lampman said the city was sympathetic to the merchants’ concerns, and that temporary parking would soon be provided for the businesses on neighborhood streets.

“I wish there was an easy solution to all this,” he said. “I know the merchants think it could have been done better. But they’re not traffic engineers.”