LAUREL, Miss. (WDAM) – Enterprise house owners alongside sixteenth Avenue in Laurel met tonight to debate how the Mississippi Division of Transportation might doubtlessly have an effect on companies.
Many enterprise house owners worry the considered having to shut on account of this chance.
“We have now enterprise house owners who’ve companies on sixteenth Ave who state to me publicly and have acknowledged within the newspaper publicly that their companies on Freeway 49 noticed a 40 % discount in revenue and in prospects,” sixteenth Avenue Committee Spokesperson Ron Swindall stated. “When you may have that a lot of a discount and in revenue and in prospects, that’s one thing that’s devastating to companies.”
The rising concern has led enterprise house owners to start out petitions, speak to native officers and even search authorized session.
Nonetheless, the potential plan by MDOT is to implement pavement medians to assist motorists flip safely. Swindall added,
“It’s harder to get by as a result of there’s limitations between turning, and it’s simpler as a substitute of going all the way in which down and turning round the place MDOT has designed for turnarounds to work, they’re going to go some again roads the place residential houses are,” stated Swindall.
MDOT held a public listening to for residents to voice their recommendations and issues; nevertheless, a number of companies need MDOT to return to the drafting board.
In truth, Swindall says,
“The mission because it stands must be utterly deserted, and MDOT, as a substitute of spending tens of millions of {dollars} on a mission we don’t want, by the way in which, tens of millions of {dollars} of debt that we don’t should be spending on this mission, they should be spending $100,000 or so finding out what else could be accomplished,” Swindell says.
Though the mission particularly impacts companies alongside sixteenth Avenue, a number of enterprise house owners really feel the necessity to take part on the battle to stop the mission from taking place.
“My enterprise isn’t on sixteenth Ave., it’s downtown Laurel, however when one enterprise proprietor is affected, subsequently that’s why we’re all coming collectively as a crew to face hand at hand to point out our assist,” says Marian Allen, the director on the Laurel-Jones County Black Historical past Museum and Arts.
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