SPOKANE, Wash. — The City of Spokane announced that the East Sprague reopening will be delayed to this Wednesday. Nov. 3.
According to city officials, the reopening was delayed due to "construction items" found within the last 48 hours that need attention.
The road has been closed between Division and Grant Streets for more than six months as repaving and other improvements were made. The closure has been felt by businesses located inside the construction zone.
"It took a pretty significant hit," said Rachel Nalley, one of the owners of Community Pint on East Sprague Ave. "We do a lot of our business as to-go, which is helpful, but it's harder to carry multiple six packs of beer through a construction zone. We did notice a lot of people just preferentially choosing other locations. I'd say we dropped at least half of our business during construction."
The road was set for a hard reopening on Monday, but the city said East Sprague is not reopening until Wednesday due to "some construction items" discovered in the last 48 hours that need attention. For Nalley, its an exciting development.
"We're extremely excited. One of the things that we love, obviously, is pouring beer to people, seeing people and getting to connect with them, and having it be easier for more people to get here is something that we can't wait for," Nalley said.
The closure happened in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which itself made it tough for businesses to stay afloat. In the case of Community Pint, Nalley said the community is to thank for its continued success.
"We're really lucky in that we have a lot of loyal customers who have come and supported us through all of it," she said. "We also do a lot to bring people in. We take trips out of town to bring in unique product, and that has helped. But, mostly just the community rallying around the places here to help keep us going throughout the construction."
The reopening of the road bringing foot and vehicle traffic isn't the only positive thing to come from the project for businesses like Nalley's. She said when the improvements started taking place, even with the road remaining closed to vehicle traffic, people started visiting the area more.
"I'd say that this area is incredibly different than it was before," Nalley said. "So, we've got amazing new streetlights, lots of cool trees and landscaping that's happened. The area itself is really gorgeous."