Year-long construction halt has Cleveland business owners losing money

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Business owners on East 105th Street in Cleveland are pleading for answers after a street project has been at a standstill.

“We haven’t seen any construction. There’s nowhere to park, one-way traffic,” explained Kimberly Carter.

Carter owns a business on East 105th Street. She told 19 News it was around this time last year that construction crews stopped working, leaving a ton of orange barrels in the road.

“I find it unfair that someone 60 or 50 have to walk up and down such streets,” said business owner Umar Clark.

Business owners explained to 19 News that because of the orange barrels, their customers are having a hard time navigating the road and finding places to park, resulting in them losing money.

“A couple deliveries I’ve missed because the trucks had nowhere to park,” said William Rosebud. “And I had a few customers come by and they kept going because they didn’t have nowhere to park.”

“The food is sometimes late getting back to the customers because there’s just nowhere to park,“ said Clark. “So, I recently had to just abolish the Door Dash, Uber Eats and Grub Hub.”

So they called the 19 News Troubleshooter team.

We spoke with Councilman Kevin Conwell who told us that the construction crew told the city they needed more money to finish the job. Conwell says the city reminded them they have a contract that needed to be honored.

But no work has been done.

Our team called the city to see where they are in their fight, but we haven’t heard back.

“It’s just not fair, its almost like we’re forgotten about,” said Clark.

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