Two down, four to go. Phase two of the construction project to widen Grant Road is now complete. And that means easier travel between stone and park. A grand-opening ceremony is planned for Tuesday. KGUN9 spoke to businesses, now working to get the word out to customers, who avoided the construction zone.
"We lost, like, half of our customers. So right now its getting known that Grant Road is done, so they're coming back," said Manvier Singh, the manager at Sher-e-Punjab.
The plaza on Grant and First has been home to Indian restaurant, Sher-e-Punjab for 20 years. The construction that started in 2017, hit this family business hard. It sits in the middle of the plaza, making access difficult. But now that the grant road project is complete, Sher-e-Punjab is excited to see its customers return.
"Finally, we are happy. People are saying they are a lot of lights, but they happy that actually that this is done nicely," said Singh.
The City of Tucson took hold of about a mile of Grant Road for this project. Grant now has a total of six lanes, drainage improvements, new sidewalks, and wider bicycle lanes. And not all businesses had been hit hard by the construction. O'Rielly Auto Parts didn't see much of a change to its customer foot-traffic during construction.
"Construction did not effect the business much, that we saw. But it was hard to get in and out. We had a lot of complaints for customers," said Ronnie Erickson, Manager, O'Rielly Auto Parts.
Erickson says customers found other ways around the construction.
"People come to an auto parts store because they need part and they'll find just about any way to get here, and there are three others ways to get here other than Grant Road," said Erickson.
For Sher-e-Punjab, they now need to get the word out that grant road is finished.
"I can say about three to two months. Its like it takes a couple months to a year for people to know, 'Oh Grant Road is finally done,'" said Singh.
This is all a part of a bigger project to improve five miles of Grant Road. Now that phase two is complete, the next two phases are expected to begin next year.
Crews will jump over to the area between Alvernon and Swan. They'll once again add more travel lanes,new and wider sidewalks, more signalized crosswalks. Crews will also add an indirect left-turn lane.
Once that's finished, phases five and six will then fill in the gap between Campbell and Country Club. That scheduled to start in about four years.
