Business Roadblock?

Six months ago, Carson businessman Gil Dawson was so excited about plans for the Alameda Corridor that he renamed his Alameda Street operation Corridor Recycling Center as he geared up for the huge volume of traffic the expanded rail and truck route was expected to send his way.

Two weeks later, work began on a stretch of the $3-billion project right outside his business, and ever since, frustration over the pace of construction and declining revenue have paved over his enthusiasm. “This has all but killed me,” he said.

News of Dawson’s plight has touched a nerve all along Alameda.

As officials prepare to launch new phases of the project, businesses large and small have begun worrying they too will pay a high price in lost revenue during construction of the so-called Fast Track to the Future. Planners say the project is essential to the region’s economic future, enabling the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to handle twice the cargo and bolstering Southern California’s position as the dominant West Coast trading hub.

But businesses along the corridor are asking at what price.

Stretching 20 miles through seven cities, the construction zone encompasses hundreds of businesses from big warehouses and manufacturing plants to small industrial support firms and wrecking yards. Few will emerge untouched by the project’s four-year construction schedule, and many fear impeded access to their establishments will scare away customers and louse up crucial shipping and receiving schedules.

As concern builds along the thoroughfare, corridor officials say they are keenly aware of their responsibility to protect commerce and that they plan to work closely with businesses to minimize disruptions.

“We intend to avoid any surprises to businesses close to the construction sites,” said Gill Hicks, general manager of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority (ACTA), which is coordinating projects to separate and expand rail and vehicle lanes from Washington Boulevard to the 91 freeway.

Although the project’s most ambitious construction projects are still months from breaking ground, calls from worried business owners have already begun pouring into ACTA’s Carson headquarters. And foremost on their minds is access.

“If they close the street down, I don’t know how I’m going to operate,” said Kermit Hillseth, who fears construction along Washington Boulevard will cut off his distribution warehouse, which relies on trucks for shipping and receiving.

Although construction to reroute Washington under an intersecting set of railroad tracks is expected to close the street off for more than a year, officials say access to Hillseth’s and neighboring businesses will be maintained at all times.

In fact, all three agencies overseeing the project--ACTA and the Los Angeles city and county public works departments--are legally obligated to maintain access to all businesses during construction or buy them under eminent domain laws.

“We do whatever is necessary to make sure business activities can continue to take place, not as a courtesy. It’s something we have to do,” said Robert Thaung, a project engineer with the city of Los Angeles.

While some delays are unavoidable, officials hope efforts to coordinate construction around shipping and receiving schedules will keep trucks rolling to and from warehouses and distribution centers.

But businesses that rely on walk-in customers contend that maintaining access is only half the battle. They fear the sight of orange signs, earthmovers and torn-up streets will scare away customers regardless of whether lanes are kept open to their businesses.

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And those who do brave the construction zone will undoubtedly travel slowly, jamming up traffic behind them, said Tony Valdivia, manager of Mike’s Auto Glass at Alameda and 74th Street.

“Traffic is bad enough without any construction. With construction it’s going to be even worse,” Valdivia said. “We’re going to lose a lot of business. People are going to go somewhere else to avoid all the hassle.”

Dawson of Corridor Recycling Center says many of his customers already have.

While work was underway on lanes directly in front of his business, Dawson said detours to his and neighboring businesses were too confusing for many customers to negotiate.

Dawson claims he has lost $70,000 in profit since ground was broken on the project in August, and fears he will lose $30,000 more before work is completed this spring.

“This really hurts a lot,” Dawson said. “We rely heavily on door trade, and people are saying, ‘We don’t know how to get to you, so we went someplace else.’ ”

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Dawson plans to file a claim against the county to recover his losses, but such inverse condemnation suits are often difficult to win, said attorney James Powers, who specializes in condemnation cases. He said Dawson and other potential plaintiffs face a tough burden in proving that construction caused “substantial impairment of access” to their businesses.

“If access was less convenient but nevertheless possible, you probably won’t win unless you can show precisely how your business was impaired,” Powers said.

County construction supervisor Brian Rickey, who is overseeing five miles of corridor projects from the 91 to Lomita Boulevard, hopes to avoid any legal action by making detours on upcoming projects more user-friendly for motorists.

Next month, construction will begin on a stretch of the corridor from Del Amo Boulevard to 223rd Street, and Rickey plans to add more signs and striping to direct drivers through the detour. He also plans to install “gawk screens” on the concrete barriers separating traffic lanes from the work site to keep drivers focused on the detour and not on construction activities on the other side. “We don’t want people to get distracted and miss a turn,” he said.

Rickey also plans to contact business owners near the construction zone to tell them where they can turn if there’s a problem.

“There’s got to be constant communication” Rickey said. “It’s the most important thing.”

Hicks agreed. ACTA’s next project isn’t scheduled to get underway until later this year, but construction managers already have plans to launch an extensive outreach program of mailers, meetings and visits to businesses.

Perhaps the most important piece of information passed along will be how to reach the project coordinator, who will be stationed on site throughout the construction to, among other things, trouble-shoot problems.

But the name of the coordinator and many specifics of the construction plans have yet to be nailed down: The project hasn’t even gone out for bid yet.

“Maybe not enough outreach has happened thus far,” Hicks said. “But we can’t tell people exactly how the construction is going to go until we know how it’s going to go.”