Booming business for Fourth Avenue merchants

CREATED Mar. 22, 2013

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  • Fourth Avenue is lined with more than 400 artists and merchants during the spring street fair. A third of these are locally owned, and they say this is where the big bucks come in. Video by kgun9.com

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Reporter: Simone Del Rosario

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - Fourth Avenue is lined with more than 400 artists and merchants during the spring street fair. A third of these are locally owned, and they say this is where the big bucks come in.

We've been here 6.5 years now. We're family owned and operated, just my wife and I,” said Bob Hyde, owner of Tucson Artistic Gifts. “The street fair accounts for about 20 to 25 percent of our sales for the entire year directly, and even more when you think about the people who get exposed to the shop during the street fair.”

This week marks a year since construction started downtown, so Nine On Your Side’s Simone Del Rosario asked the Fourth Avenue marketing director how this festival is different. 

“Is there something specifically special about this street fair considering all the construction the businesses have been going through with these rail lines going in?” Del Rosario asked.

“The special thing is: There's no construction on Fourth Avenue!” Mark Tallis replied. “They're done. The train tracks are in, we have no construction. We are wide open and we want everyone to come on down and see how beautiful our brand new street is.”

And local business owners have been looking forward to the unveiling.

“The construction has definitely hurt us,” said Chrissy Burgstaler, co-owner of How Sweet It Was. “I think a lot of the public is still under the assumption that it's still torn up down here, which it's not, so this is a nice opportunity to show people, ‘Hey, we got it together again.”