Remote Ready Work

The city of Winooski is still in the early phases of a three-year construction project that will improve the road along the Main Street corridor. The Main Street Revitalization Project is focusing on replacing 100-year-old sewer and water utilities.It’s also improving the lanes for pedestrians and cyclists, among other upgrades.However just months of it taking place, while many local businesses agree this is a necessary project, they’re also feeling the extreme impacts by it.Five months ago, Vermont Curry & Cocktails established themselves on Main Street.But throughout their entire tenure, businesses has been extremely slow.Its been not as well as we would have hoped,” said Abinav Niroula, who is a bartender at the restaurant and the son of the owners of the family run business.Niroula said they see some take out orders, but often times the inside of their restaurant can be completely empty during the day.He feels the Main Street construction is the greatest contributing factor to that.Theres not many people that want to drive through the construction to eat here,” Niroula said.Niroula’s sentiments aren’t alone.Last week, McKees Pub & Grill announced they’ll be shutting their doors on Aug. 17.The more than 35-year-old staple in the community shared a letter on social media cited “continued construction issues” affecting their sales.It’s a story the city said they’re hearing more frequently with some businesses telling them that revenue is down as much as 60%.I’m definitely concerned that this is one of potentially more closings,” said Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott.In a joint interview with Lott and City Manager Elaine Wang on Thursday, both said they underestimated the effect this would have.We did not anticipate as a city government that the impacts would be this severe,” Wang said. “If we knew what we knew now, we would have started all of this earlier.They both said they’re working to find ways to better support these businesses.Some of those initiatives include increasing their marketing efforts.They’re also talking with businesses to see if they would have interest in participating in their small business loan program. If so, they will look to expand it.The city is talking to government funders and banks for donations.They’re also reaching out to agencies for support.Some of them include the U.S. Small Business Adminstration, Vermont Professional of Color Network, and the Vermont Small Development Center.Were hopeful that with now more concerted effort and attention on this, that will turn up some ideas that will, help folks get through some of this,” Wang said.Some Main Street business owners, like Karl Jensen of Colonial Mobile Home Supply, hopes the financial support can come from people still entering their stores. Jensen believes the severity of the construction project for shoppers is more perception than reality.People hear there’s a big construction project in Winooski and they try to avoid it, when in fact all it does is probably add a couple of minutes to your drive in,” Jensen said.With this being a multi-year project, Jensen hopes that people’s minds will change before it’s too late.All the businesses that have been open all these years are still open and probably need you more than ever,” Jensen said.Main Street construction will continue through the summer of 2026, with the bulk of that disruption done by November 2025.However then the emphasis of the impact will shift when the Burlington-Winooski bridge project gets underway in 2027.