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Upper King Street retailers praise, curse beautification
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
To enter M. Craig & Co., an upscale furniture store at 493 King St., customers must cross a metal bridge leading from the curb to the store’s entrance and spanning a new sidewalk in progress.
They don’t mind doing it, said store manager Penelope Mallory.
Even before the city of Charleston installed the temporary bridge, one couple determined to buy a $9,000 bed from the store leaped across a 6-foot-wide swath of wet cement to reach the store’s entrance, Mallory recalled.
Such dedicated customers and the vision of a newer, more alluring thoroughfare resurfaced and lined with palmettos and bluestone sidewalks have made bearable all the jackhammers, dust, torn-up sidewalks, limited parking and other construction-related headaches that are part of upper King Street’s “streetscape” beautification project, according to Mallory and other upper King Street merchants.
Meanwhile, the street’s more frustrated retailers complain the construction has cost them walk-in traffic, leading to losses in sales.
Mallory’s and several other stores along upper King Street have been outfitted, courtesy of the city, with temporary bridges leading from the street to the stores’ entrances until the new sidewalks are installed.
“I’m willing to put up with it because the bluestone is going to look so nice,” Mallory said.
“We definitely appreciate it,” Meredith Nelson, a sales associate at the King Street Antique Mall at 495 King Street, said of the construction. “It’ll be beautiful when it’s finished.”
Despite the construction obstacles, Nelson claimed King Street Antique Mall has lost little, if any, business.
“We’re doing really well,” Nelson said. “People haven’t been scared off.”
Grin and bear it
However, not all upper King merchants share those sentiments.
“I’ve lost all my walk-in business,” said Brandon Hudson, manager of Artist & Craftsman Supply at 434 King St. “People see all the scaffolding and torn-up sidewalks and don’t want to come down this way.”
That loss in walk-in traffic translates into an 18% drop in sales compared with last year’s numbers, Hudson said.
Walk-in traffic also has disappeared from English Rose Antiques at 436 King St., according to storeowner Julie Stiles.
Stiles said it was difficult to estimate how much business she has lost. But she did say the massive beautification project could have been better organized.
“They told us they wouldn’t start doing our section of the street until the end of August and they started in June,” she said.
Italian footwear retailer Farushga at 441 King St. reportedly has lost some walk-in traffic and is slashing prices up to 70%, a deeper cut than what the store usually offers during its summer sale, to attract more business.
Although the city understands the pain these and other merchants are enduring, no compensation is in store, said Sharon Brennan, the city’s economic development director.
Across the street from Farushga, Fish restaurant has been distributing teddy bears as presents to patrons for bearing with the construction in front of the fine-dining eatery. Patrons who bring their teddy bears back to the restaurant on a different occasion get half-off a bottle of wine from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. The deal lasts through August, and the bears will be donated to patients at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Children’s Hospital.
After the teddy bear campaign began in June, Fish gave away nearly 1,000 bears in less than a month, said Randall Goldman, managing partner of Patrick Properties, which includes the American Theater, the William Aiken House and Fish.
The construction has done little to slow business at the restaurant. Although there has been a slight dip in lunch sales, the restaurant’s dinner sales are making up for it, Goldman said, adding that construction for the day usually ends around 5 p.m., when the restaurant begins serving dinner.
“Our sales are still above last year’s and ahead of projection,” Goldman said.
Goldman, who said the construction has not generated any “negative feedback” from his customers, added that he and his Patrick Properties managers joke with customers about the construction in front of the three adjacent properties, where the sidewalk has been dug up.
“We ask them how they like our moat project and things like that,” Goldman said. “You’ve got to put a positive spin on it. When you’re given lemons, make lemonade. Your customers are going to get a vibe from you.”
Charlene Heaston, manager of Coastal Classics, a furniture retailer at 511 King St., is not sure how much walk-in traffic the relatively new store would have had if not for the street construction.
Nevertheless, customers are still coming, she said.
Even though Coastal Classics has hired a staff to give the store a weekly cleaning of construction dust, Heaston remains upbeat about the streetscape project.
“It’s worth the headache,” she said. “The city has been wonderful in keeping us updated.”
Some upper King Street property owners praise the concern Gulf Stream Construction Co., the project’s primary contractor, has shown for their businesses. Goldman noted how a Gulf Stream construction worker tracked him down to find out when would be the least intrusive time to operate the jackhammer in front of Fish.
Long time coming
King Street property owners chipped in more than 10% of the $21 million tab, with the city covering the rest of the cost, for the three-phase “streetscape” project, which stretches from Broad to Carolina streets. The effort involves resurfacing the street; installing new sidewalks, brick crosswalks, curbs and lighting; planting palmetto trees in tree wells; providing ramps for the disabled; burying overhead wires; and replacing underground utilities.
The first phase, begun in 2000 and completed two years later, covered middle King Street, from Market to Calhoun streets.
Upper King Street, from Calhoun to Carolina streets, is the second phase. It began in late 2005 and is scheduled for completion by spring 2007.
The second phase is moving along according to schedule, said Sharon Brennan, the city’s economic development director.
A date for the beginning of the third phase, covering lower King from Broad to Market streets, cannot be given until engineers analyze that section of the street, Brennan said.
Many merchants consider the beautification of King Street a long time coming.
“Upper King Street is becoming a destination, and some of us have waited 10 years to get that type of recognition,” Goldman said.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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