Kirkwood area thrives again

Just more than one year ago, normalcy returned to Kirkwood Avenue after a summer that was anything but. Bloomington\'s "Big Dig" marked the summer of 2000 as one of the worst ever for businesses located on Kirkwood.\nThe repair work last summer replaced the 100-year-old culvert beneath Kirkwood and Dunn Street through which the Jordan River flows. The antiquated structure was on the verge of collapse. The repairs were a necessary, said Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez. \nStores located on Kirkwood began to feel the pinch caused by the construction. Traffic was diverted or stopped entirely, and customers had difficulty getting to businesses. \n"People had to go through a maze of alleys to get here that summer," said Dawna Petersen, co-owner of White Mountain Ice Creamery, 107 N. Dunn St. "Sales were down. To say business was bad that summer would be an understatement."\nJeff Green, owner of Cha Cha, 427 E. Kirkwood Ave., saw similar devastation with his store. \n"There was absolutely no business that summer," he said. "Sales were down over 75 percent. It was tough to keep going."\nFreshman and Bloomington resident Katie Martin understands why the businesses were affected so adversely. During that summer she would rarely venture down to Kirkwood, if ever.\n"It was a total mess," she said. "Unless I really, really needed something there, I wouldn\'t go."\nNow with Kirkwood repaired, businesses tell very different tales about how their enterprises were affected long term by the construction. Green believes that the project was beneficial in the long run, while Petersen maintains that it permanently crippled her business.\n"My customers changed their habits that summer," Petersen said. "It\'s very tough to get them back now."\nShe added that White Mountain is still looking for a new location.\nGreen sees the Kirkwood project as something that shouldn\'t affect businesses anymore.\n"Businesses should have recovered by now," he said. "I knew that there would be no long term effect. My only concern was how long the construction would last. Now that construction is complete, my store is doing better than ever. Traffic is back up and so are sales. If someone claims that their business is still affected by a project that has been complete for over a year they need to consider how well they would be doing even if there was no construction."\nGreen said he holds no grudges against the city, believing the project necessary. He said the city still needs to do some plantings, but the street looks exactly as promised otherwise. \nGreen also disagreed with people who claim the feel of old Kirkwood is gone.\n"Frankly, I don\'t even think about the difference in appearance anymore," he said. If people say that the feel is gone, they\'re too caught up in appearance, and don\'t notice the same atmosphere."\nNow that Kirkwood is repaired Martin feels free to bring her new friends down to enjoy the shopping and atmosphere. \n"Kirkwood is a great place to spend your Saturday afternoons," she said. "It's great taking people down here who haven\'t been to Bloomington before. There\'s such a wide variety of things to do. This is the culture of Bloomington"