Athens Restaurants Grapple with Downtown Development

During the pandemic, development projects — from streetscaping to a new plaza — broke ground in downtown Athens. But businesses today are feeling the growing pains.

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed Athens restaurants, owners and customers didn’t know what to expect when things returned to normal. Now, one of the most visible changes is this:

The construction on Clayton Street, which began early this year, will replace old piping, extend sidewalks and add an electrical conduit. It’s been a goal over 20 years in the making, District 3 commissioner Melissa Link said.

But it has become an additional headache for downtown restaurants who are already experiencing a host of challenges due to the pandemic, said The Grill owner Mike Bradshaw.

“We’re just taking a bite of the shit sandwich right now,” Bradshaw said.

Before construction began, the mayor and commission established two outdoor spaces to help struggling restaurants: a parklet program and a pedestrian-friendly plaza on College Avenue.

The parklet program is run by the Athens Downtown Development Authority. It is designed to allow restaurants to serve outdoor food and beverages after they were fined by the Athens police for serving alcohol outside their buildings. Restaurants weren’t able to take advantage of the space until well after the summer months, which frustrated Link.

“Nothing moves quickly around here, especially when it comes to downtown,” Link said.

Since its September launch, the mayor and commission has voted to extend the parklet program numerous times. Yet for restaurants like Amici, which is located in the middle of Clayton Street, the timing didn’t work out in their favor.

“I think the timing of it was a little rough because they didn’t start it until it started getting cold. And that was a little backwards to me,” Amici manager Brad Luquire said.

Luquire said Amici doesn’t use the parklets on cold or rainy days. Add in seasonal pollen and loud construction, and they aren’t getting the most out of the space, especially as their sidewalk is scheduled to be ripped up in the next few months.

“It seemed like a good idea, but it seemed a little half-assed to me,” Luquire said. “It was just kind of like a band aid. It just seemed a little, a little short sighted to me, I guess.”

The mayor and commission also recently voted on April 7 to make the College Avenue plaza permanent.

Link admitted it will take time to get it just right, but she believes local businesses have already found it useful.

“I think The Grill benefited from it, which is great,” she said.

But Bradshaw begs to differ. The plaza poses unique risks to his business. He believes the commission should have been more transparent about the plaza’s consequences and should have reached out to seek his and others’ opinions.

“They effectively closed the street my business was on, and it has affected our business negatively,” Bradshaw said.

He’s concerned about the lack of emergency vehicle access and difficulty of removing his carbon dioxide and grease reclamation tanks. He also can’t serve alcohol to customers on the plaza.

“The way we were doing business, before the plaza, we would have structured ourselves differently if we had known we could serve customers out there,” Bradshaw said.

The commission buried the approval for the plaza in a vote with the budget plan and removal of the Confederate monument on Broad Street over the summer. While Bradshaw doesn’t want the plaza, he’s hopeful more voices will be heard as plans are made to make it permanent.

“Guys like me, it makes me very nervous, and I’m not sure about it,” Bradshaw said. “I think the plaza could be awesome, although I don’t want it, but the implementation has to come off correctly.”

Athens residents will not witness the final combined effects of the construction, parklet program and plaza until 2022. Despite facing a difficult year with COVID-19, downtown restaurants are nowhere in the clear anytime soon.