Local companies see drop in customer traffic

By Matthew French
Staff Writer

With the road widening between the Mark Clark Expressway and the Isle of Palms Connector in Mount Pleasant ongoing, some area businesses say they’ve suffered a marked decrease in customer traffic.

Road crews for weeks have been working on the southbound side of the highway, which plays host to a number of small businesses that rely on customer traffic to keep afloat.

When construction is finished, the now-four-lane highway, with a center turn lane, will have six lanes and a center median dividing northbound traffic from southbound. While the town and county deemed the move was necessary to accommodate growth in the city, businesses worry that they could lose a substantial number of customers who will be unable to turn across traffic into their establishments.

Those on the southbound side of the roadway are also currently enduring construction on the doorstep of their properties, which they say is quashing business.

“It’s very intimidating for our customers to pull up and see all of this construction going on right in front of our store,” says Jeff Davis, general manager of Rae’s Cleaners, which is located at the intersection of Highway 17 and Mathis Ferry Road. “They want to pull in, but see all of the dust and heavy equipment, so they go on their way. We have done significantly less business since they started construction.”

In an attempt to offset the losses seen at the Highway 17 location, Rae’s opened satellite cleaners in the Park West neighborhood and at the Sea Island shopping center, located at Coleman Boulevard and Chuck Dawley Boulevard.

“This construction absolutely endangers our ability to stay in this (Highway 17) location,” Davis says. “We opened these satellite centers to offset the loss of business we’re seeing here. These weren’t planned openings but rather in response to what we’re facing here.”

Henry’s Sporting Goods, which was located just north of Mathis Ferry Road on Highway 17, has already been forced to move once when that area was realigned two years ago. Now located on Highway 17 just north of the Interstate 526 overpass, the business once again faces stiff challenges because of construction and the plans for the highway expansion.

“The construction has already hurt, and the center median is going to hurt even more,” says Buddy Perritt, son of owner and founder Henry Perritt. “This construction was done in such a way that it’s impossible to avoid hurting businesses. We can’t guess how much it will impact us, we just have to wait until it’s done to see how much.”

Center median a second blow

Businesses on the southbound lane already suffering because of ongoing construction say they will likely receive a second blow when construction is finished. Current plans call for the installation of a raised, curbed center median between the three northbound lanes and three southbound.

Customers who want to turn across traffic today have a center turn lane of which they can take advantage to reach businesses on the opposite side of the road. When the construction is finished, they will be forced to continue to the next intersection and then make a U-turn to reach the same business.

“They’re going to put in a center divider to prevent turns across traffic, and as a result, we stand to lose much of our northbound business,” says Davis. “While customers could continue down the road and turn around, we could also lose half.”

Businesses owners also expressed a concern that emergency vehicles traversing the roadway will find the going much more difficult in the future when they don’t have a center turn lane to use. Emergency vehicles have found the lane to be particularly beneficial in responding to traffic accidents or transporting patients to the East Cooper Medical Center, says Cliff Burriss, owner of Cliff’s Appliances.

“I see the emergency vehicles traveling down the center lane every day at 100 miles an hour,” he says.

“I think we may see more incidents now because there will be no lane, and that’s unnecessary.”

Not everyone complaining

Not all of the business owners lament the construction. Burriss says that his store now has more visibility along Highway 17 since the trees in front were removed for the road widening.

“People can see my sign and see my store,” he says.

“But then, we’re not like a hardware store. We don’t see the traffic a hardware store does.”

And, he adds, people rarely impulsively turn into an appliance store for a forgotten item the way they might at a hardware store or a sporting goods store.

“We have to wait and see how it all works out,” he says.

“We have to be tolerant of what the town is trying to do.”

Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@charlestonbusiness.com.

SUBSCRIBE | REPRINTS | CONTACT US

Phone: 843-849-3100    Fax: 843-849-3122