Merchants anxious as road work continues

MYSTIC, Conn. (WTNH) -- For businesses along the shoreline Summer is the prime season for making money, but merchants along Mystic's busy West Main Street say construction is eating into their profits.
    
For the past year or so merchants in Mystic had resigned themselves to knowing it was going to get worse before it was going to get better.

"It's been very noise, very dusty, parking places difficult. The traffic has been snarled all the way up to the church and back," said Ross Mandell of Bartleby's Cafe.

"I'm sure it's discouraging for some folks," said resident Annette Brownlee. "Yeah cause I noticed along the waterfront today it was very quiet where normally there'd be a lot of people."

In the end they'll have a brand new streetscape with new sidewalks, freshly paved roads, and underground utilities, but in the meantime merchants are telling News 8 they're suffering.

"Do you see a drop in the number of people coming in to the coffee shop," News 8's Tina Detelj asked.

"Oh yeah, easily a third," Mandell replied.

After all the equipment is gone and the streets are quiet once again some of the store owners say they're worried that people who come to Mystic won't realize that the construction is gone even after it is and it will take them a while to come back.

The latest roadblock street milling is temporarily banning parking along the main drag. Town officials say the deadline for this project is June 30th. Workers appear to be going full force to meet it.

"We depend on it," Mandell said. "We absolutely depend on it."

For the merchants who have survived so far they're counting on it getting better before they can no longer recover from their losses.