KGUN 9 On Your Side, Tucson News, Weather & SportsTucson sets schedule to widen Grant Road
Member Center:
After years of talking and planning, the city of Tucson is releasing the timeline for a road project so big it may affect almost any Tucsonan who drives.
It's the project to widen Grant Road to six lanes from Swan to Oracle.
The intersection of Grant and Oracle will be the first phase of a project that will go from 2011 to 2024---about 13 years. It'll be broken into phases so no one area has to cope with construction for more than two years...but that's more than enough to make businesses worry construction hassles will head their customers somewhere else.
Right near Grant and Oracle, Jack Furrier's does a brisk business in tires and repairs, but they worry things will turn flat when construction starts.
Greg Campagne/JACK FURRIER'S WESTERN TIRE & AUTO: 'I'll tell ya, I'm a little nervous about how work's gonna be coming into the shop due to the fact that the roads are gonna be torn up. We're a pretty busy shop around here but I'm thinking it's gonna affect us quite a bit."
Work at Grant and Oracle should run 2010 through 2012. The rest of the project will go in phases through 2024. The road should never be entirely closed. No one place should be disrupted more than two years.
To make room for the widening, some property owners are going to be forced to sell to the city big pieces of their property and their parking lots.
Robert Tait owns a business on Grant. His family owns commercial properties on the road.
Craig Smith: What sort of things can and will you do to ride out that construction period? Robert Tait/BUDGET INSURANCE: "One of the things we're looking at doing, we have 4 locations and we're talking about shifting some of our staff from this location to other locations also notifying clients how they can contact us and do business with us through the internet and over the phone rather than having to come to our office."
The city and RTA hired Britton Dornquast to give free business advice on how to survive. He suggests determining how much you depend on drive-by traffic and maybe try to attract new customers through marketing that makes them want to seek you out.
Craig Smith asked Britton Dornquast/MAIN STREET BUSINESS ASSISTANCE: 'If I'm one of these business people I could say, some of your advice sounds very interesting but it sounds like I may have to invest money I may not have. A: That's one of the reasons you want to work with the businesses well in advance of the project. Cause you want to get them to understand part of the project is to plan and every business needs to plan at least 2 to 3 to 4 years out.
And he says part of that planning may be to lock in a line of credit before construction is in front of your door, affecting your business.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.grantroad.info/
