Despite progress, repaving slows customer traffic on Mahoning Avenue

By Elise Franco

AUSTINTOWN — The $2.5 million repaving of Mahoning Avenue is getting closer to completion, to the relief of some businesses along the route.

The Mahoning Avenue mill-and-fill project, overseen by the Mahoning County Engineer’s Department, began Sept. 30. The work area is from Meridian Road to the Meander Reservoir, about five miles. It’s set for completion by the end of November.

“The project is on schedule. This is the halfway point,” said Marilyn Kenner, the county’s chief deputy engineer. “We still expect to meet our deadline.”

Businesses are weighing in on the 60-day project’s effects now and for the future.

Noday’s Pizza and Deli, owned by Ken Noday, has been at a central point on Mahoning Avenue for 18 years, and Noday said he’s never seen such a drop in customers.

He said he thinks a big reason why customers have tended to pass by the shop is because once they pull into the parking lot, it’s difficult to get back out. A few motorists who did decide to stop at Noday’s have had fender-benders trying to get back into traffic, he said.

“Traffic just doesn’t stop to let any cars through,” Noday said. “They had our street blocked [twice] for a whole day. A lot of people say they don’t know the back streets, so they don’t come when they can’t get to it from Mahoning.”

Although he is happy the work is finally being done and said it will benefit business in the long run, Noday can’t deny sales have suffered.

“Every Friday we have a fish fry, and the first two Fridays [of the construction], it was bad,” he said. “We probably lost about 35 percent of business on those days.”

Noday said he’s seen a slightly less substantial drop in daily sales as well.

Linda Bott, manager of Antone’s Italian Cafe, which has been on Mahoning Avenue for 20 years, said the restaurant has seen profit losses of about 10 percent.

“It’s dropped off, especially lunch,” she said, motioning to the dining room where only a handful of patrons were seated.

Bott said on a normal, construction-free lunch hour, the dining room would be full.

“Weekends are still OK, because the workers aren’t out there,” she said.

Bott said delivery orders have picked up significantly since the project began.

“Deliveries take longer now because of the construction, but most customers are very understanding because they know and understand what is going on,” she said.

Things don’t seem quite so slow for Flynn’s Tire and Auto Service, just down the street from Antone’s, said manager Randy McConnell.

“We’ve been pretty lucky,” he said. “We’re fortunate that October and November are our busiest times, and motorists are putting up with the inconvenience to get in here because they have to.”

McConnell said, unlike other area businesses, auto shops are “a bit recession-resistant.”

“If times are good, people want to get their cars fixed,” he said. “If times are bad, they have to keep their cars up, so they have to get them fixed.”

Businesses may be hurting now, but Kenner said the project is already 85 percent complete, including the majority of paving.

“It went pretty smooth. We were really happy with the contractor,” Shelley Co., of Twinsburg, she said. “The contractor knew the work had to be done in a timely manner, and he’s kept to the schedule to get the project completed on time.”

Kenner said the last 30 days of the project will be dedicated to installing handicap-accessible curb ramps, repairing damaged curbs and paving intersections.

Noday knows even though the county’s project is almost finished, he may have to tough out the orange barrels, lane closures and traffic jams a bit longer thanks to the state.

At the beginning of October, the Ohio Department of Transportation began construction on the Mahoning Avenue Bridge, the last of a $7 million, four-bridge project in Mahoning County, said Paula Putnam, public information officer for ODOT District IV.

She said the area of Mahoning Avenue that runs over state Route 11 is now restricted to two lanes.

“It should take until August of 2009 to finish it,” Putnam said. “We’re doing half at a time to make it easier on traffic.”

A.P. O’Horo Co. of Youngstown is widening the lanes and redecking, which means it is pulling up the old concrete and pouring new.

There will be four 12-feet-wide lanes and a 14.9-foot left turning lane onto Route 11, Putnam said. Motorists going westbound on Mahoning can continue in the left turning lane just past Route 11 to Marcia Drive.

“We try to make sure we don’t stop traffic all the time,” she said. “When we’ve designed projects for the last 10 years, our goal is to keep [the roads] open while we work so it doesn’t stop our life flow.

“People’s time is important, so we don’t want to have to detour them.”

efranco@vindy.com