Invercargill retailers caught off guard with 14 month street closure

Friday, 23 July 2021

Esk St in Invercargill will be closed to traffic for 14 months for the planned City Streets Upgrade.

Some retailers on Esk St are questioning if they can survive a 14-month stint without nearby accessible car parks, as the Invercargill City Council “runs to catch up” with the half-way completed CBD development.

On Wednesday, the council announced it would be closing parts of Don St and all of Esk St to vehicles from late August for the planned City Streets Upgrade to go alongside the multi-million dollar CBD block development by Invercargill Central.

Don St would be open in sections for most of the duration of the project, with a completion date of July 2022, but Esk St would be unavailable to traffic until November 2022.

Some retailers along the planned closed section of Esk St have expressed concerns about the upgrade.

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16012021. News. Kavinda Herath /The Southland Times /Stuff-Bronze Connection Hair Mechanics on Esk St owner Wendy Findley said the closure would heavily impact her elderly clientele who could not walk from nearby available car parking locations.

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Bronze Connection Hair Mechanics owner Wendy Findley said the lack of parking would heavily impact her elderly clientele who could not walk from a few blocks away.

Many of the nearby parking advertised by the council as alternatives were 90 minutes parks. Findley said given that a regular cut and colour exceeds that time, clientele may be driven to salons with more available parking options.

President of the Neighbouring Retail Group and owner of Shoe Clinic on Esk St Ben Fokkens believes the skills learnt during COVID-19 is going to help businesses adapt to less traffic in the area.

“Is the business going to survive 14 months? I don’t know,” she said.

Citizen Skelts Jewellers owner Ashley Harris said that whilst he was aware Esk St would be closing for vehicles at some point, he had received no indication that it would be 14 months.

Harris believed the project could be done faster.

“I don’t want to go broke because they [council] haven’t committed enough resources to it.”

Shoe Clinic owner and Neighbouring Retail Group president Ben Fokkens said it was important to keep positive in the face of disruption.

Like other retailers, he was shocked to learn of the length of the closure, but expects businesses would make adaptations and learn to thrive in the setting.

The scheduled completion of the 675-space parking complex included in the CBD development in May 2022 would reduce the stress placed on businesses, Fokkens said.

McKnight and Brown owner Bernie Brown said it was planning to adjust their business model to accommodate disruptions, and that the result after completion would be fantastic for the community.

“It’s really business as usual, but with a twist,” he said.

Brown said he may introduce free delivery within town limits as an alternative for customers who were unable to visit the store without close by parking.

Fokkens said that the Neighbouring Retail Group plans to work with the council as it previously worked with CBD developers to “beautify” the street during upgrades.

The group had previously brought to developers the idea of food trucks and artwork on hoardings around construction on Esk St, which they had readily adopted.

Invercargill City Council roading manager Russell Pearson said it planned to work with the Neighbouring Retail Group to ‘activate’ the area to continue to make Esk St attractive to potential customers.

The council was looking at areas it could promote for parking and creative ways to make space useable during construction, he said.

A “drop-off” area was also being considered to increase accessibility to Esk St businesses, he said.

Council chief executive Clare Hadley said the council had communicated to businesses the length of the traffic closure as quickly as possible, given it only found out the timeframe of the closure 10 days ago.

Because of the complexity of the City Streets Upgrade planning process, it was moving as quickly as possible to catch up to the now half-way complete CBD developments.

“We are, quite frankly, running to catch up,” she said.

Whilst she understood the length of the closure would be an initial shock to retailers, she expected strong community support in Southland would help sustain businesses.