With the road reconstruction for Shawano’s Main Street less than two years away, the Business Improvement District is looking at taking steps now to make sure local businesses don’t suffer when the road is closed to traffic.
The BID board discussed the Main Street 2028 project at its May 7 meeting and threw around ideas about what needed to be done to get businesses ready when the heavy equipment comes in. The project will be in two phases, with the first phase including downtown businesses south of Main Street all the way to Zingler Avenue. The second phase will impact businesses north of Main Street to the bridge for the Wolf River channel.
City officials are already looking at making sure that rear entrances for downtown businesses are easily accessible during road reconstruction. City Clerk Lesley Nemetz said she and BID coordinator Lindsay Johnson planned to check the alleyways in May and see if the city needed to make improvements there.
“We’re just looking at some of those things that we can plan for and potentially getting in touch with businesses that butt up to those alleys,” Nemetz said. “A lot of times, we can work with those businesses to get their rear entrances repaved at the same time, and then it’s a lot less costly for that business owner if we have things up and ready.”
The alley work would need to be done in 2027; if the project is expected to get on the city’s budget for that year, it would need to be solidified this summer, when the city starts planning for the next year. The Main Street work is expected to start in May 2028, so doing alley fixes that year would likely be too late, according to Nemetz.
Board member Chelsea Gilling encouraged the examination of alleyways, noting that hers has a number of potholes.
“It is bad by us,” Gilling said. “You could do a hot tub in one of them.”
Nemetz said she and Johnson were going to put together information to give to businesses to help prepare them to stay open during the road work. The Main Street construction is expected to last until September 2028, possibly into October.
The sidewalks in front of the businesses will be open for the duration of road construction, but no one will be able to park in front of businesses. The city is also looking for employees of the downtown businesses to park further away so customers can utilize parking spots closer to the buildings.
“We have a lot of amazing parking downtown,” Nemetz said. “We really do. We just need to let people know and talk about how we have all this rear access availability.”
Gilling recommended the city look at having banners, in addition to the usual signage, that indicates where public parking is located.
Johnson said she was going to prepare a checklist for businesses to make sure customers know where they are. Some of the things including have the name of the business on or around the back door, having hours posted in that area, posting an open/closed sign in the back area, moving garbage cans so they’re not the main focus of the business and more.
“These are just some things to keep in mind,” Johnson said. “If you walk some of the back alleyways, some are doing an amazing job, while others could use a little help.”
