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University Avenue is a mess, with holes bored into the ground and orange and white sandwich boards dotting the streets and sidewalk. These board’s, often decorated with bright yellow “caution” tape are meant to protect passersby and automobiles from the gaps in the sidewalk and streets, but it’s not unusual to see the signs displaced and lying helter skelter on their sides. 

All this is for beauty. 

University Avenue between Oxford and Milvia streets has been benefiting, since May, from a bond-funded upgrade, but University Avenue merchants are getting sick of the mess and say they’re losing money. 

Mike Tami, owner of the Au Coquelet Cafe at 2000 University Ave. said he was willing to put up with three weeks of construction along his side of the street. That’s the time-frame he was given for the work, he said. 

Now, almost three months later, Tami and other merchants along the stretch say they are losing money and are anxious for the project to be completed.  

Workers are installing new lighting, improving the sidewalk and crosswalks and planting 39 new trees as part of a $4 million downtown improvement project funded by Measure S, passed by voters in 1996. 

Tami estimates that he has lost over 15 percent in business since the construction began. Frank Caramagno of Caramagno’s Barber Shop at 2018 University says he’s lost 35 percent.  

“They said three or four weeks for each side of the street,” Tami said, referring to an estimate given to him by City Project Engineer Sam Lee. 

Lee said that unforeseen circumstances have caused the delay along Tami’s block – University Ave. from Milvia Street to Shattuck Avenue – but he said the city is right on schedule with the timetable set by the Downtown Business Association, which was June 1 to Sept. 1. 

Lee said the work along the south side of University from Milvia Street to Shattuck Avenue has taken longer than expected because of connection problems with underground utilities. 

He said that the city is sensitive to the needs of the merchants, and that is why they had hoped to work on one side of the road at a time. 

Nonetheless, ground was broken on the north side of University just last week with unfinished work on the south side, including unfinished crosswalks and wheelchair ramps. The construction on both sides of the street means parking spaces on both the north and the south sides are used by construction crews.  

The merchants say that the lack of parking is the biggest problem. 

Lee says it will all be finished in a couple of weeks 

“It will be completed, except for the planting of the trees, in two or three weeks,” Lee said. He added that the city asked the contractors, Bauman Landscape, to hurry because of the complaints of the merchants. 

Not everyone is losing money because of the construction. Vera Nokham, a stylist at Gentle Hair Cuts at 2043 University, said that it’s been business as usual since construction began. 

“I guess it depends on the kind of business,” she said. “It hasn’t affected us. But we have a regular customer base. I could see the restaurants losing some business because of the sidewalk (construction).” 

Tami says that when the curbside parking gets scarce on the north side of the street, as it has been for a little more than a week, those businesses will begin to suffer. 

“It’s unfair that our (curbside) parking has been blocked off for so long,” he said.