MURFREESBORO, Tenn. -
Business owners near a major road project want the city of Murfreesboro to compensate them for lost revenue caused by the construction project.
The project started in December 2010 according to Murfreesboro city engineer Chris Griffith. The construction project will add drainage, new sidewalks, on-street parking, decorative lighting and landscaping to the South Maney Avenue area.
The project stretches from South East Broad Street along South Maney Avenue to East College Street.
Eric Turner owns Calvary International Barber Shop and Hair Salon on East State Street near South Maney Avenue.
He said since construction started he has watched other businesses close and has had a tough time keeping his customers.
"Two businesses have already closed and others are on their way out if something is not done," Turner said. "The two beauticians that were here, they left because they weren't getting customers."
He continued, "There were days we were sitting here just watching TV."
The construction project came as a result of a planning study about the Maney Avenue area. The goal of the project is to increase foot traffic to the area, as well as attract more businesses.
"First to encourage folks to go to that area to conduct business," Murfreesboro city engineer Chris Griffith said, "and then encourage more business to start up there."
Griffith said the city hired a contractor who has a lot of experience with project dealing with utilities. The city also restricted the contractor to completing the project a couple of blocks at a time, instead of building out the entire project all at one time.
"We really forced the contractor to get it rebuilt and to get it repaved before he moved on to the next section," Griffith said. "We did that in an effort to limit the disturbance to the businesses and of the folks that live there."
Turner had been requesting a meeting with city officials for several months about the construction project's effect on his business.
Monday he met with Murfreesboro's city manager where he asked the city to compensate him and other businesses along Maney Avenue for lost revenue.
The city said it has never paid a business for lost revenue caused by a city construction project.
"They kept expressing that in the future it is going to look good," Turner said. "But my thing was you want it for the future, that is good, but it's the present that we are feeling."
Turner started a petition and wrote multiple letters to the city on behalf of his business and neighboring businesses.
"Barber shops have been on this street for 30 years, since I was a child, so there is a lot of black history here," he said. "To us this is our country club. This is a place where a young man can come in and feel like somebody."
Other said the move to improve Maney Avenue may foreshadow a move by the city to replace older small businesses with newer larger businesses.
"The goal is to squeeze the smaller mom and pop shops out of business," Turner's cousin Tommy Walker said. "It is more than just the money that motivates the people who run these businesses."
Walker said businesses like Turner's serve an important role in the surrounding area by providing a place for young people to interact with positive role models.
"I have seen a drastic improvement in the overall attitude and disposition of the young people who walk around here," he said. "You are not going to get this at a [McDonald's] or a Starbucks."
Turner said business is starting to rebound from the construction disturbance as more parts of Maney Avenue are finished.
"It is slowly coming back, but it is not like it was before," he said.
Griffith said the construction project is progressing ahead of schedule. The majority of the construction could be complete by August with final landscaping work being done by the end of September.
