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true true true

Kirkwood Ave. Restaurant, Business Owners Divided On Whether To Extend Street Closure To Winter

By Lane Wolf

Posted September 22, 2020

Kirkwood Dining

The city began closing Kirkwood Ave. to vehicular traffic on June 19 to accommodate outdoor dining and retail space on the weekends. (Mitch Legan, WTIU/WFIU News)

The City of Bloomington's decision to close Kirkwood Avenue on weekends allowed many businesses to stay open by moving some operations outside during the pandemic, and some owners don’t want to move back inside yet.

The Bloomington City Council will decide Wednesday whether to extend weekend closures of Kirkwood set to expire Sept. 30 until Dec. 31. The city installed removable bollards and began closing this key commercial street to vehicular traffic on June 19 to accommodate outdoor dining and retail space on the weekends.

Susan Bright, the co-owner and CFO of Nick's English Hut and Osteria Rago, said the street closure has saved her business.

“Outside seating has been a savior for us,” Bright said. “It’s brought us a lot of good revenue, a lot of good energy — just good vibes.”

According to Bright, outdoor dining allowed people to build up the confidence to come out of quarantine and into restaurants again. And when restaurants began to see that customers wanted to dine outside, they began investing in outdoor furniture and umbrellas.

Galen Cassady, the manager at Uptown Café, said prior to this forced experiment he feared closing Kirkwood would limit parking and accessibility. But after a successful trial run, he’s looking at outdoor heaters to keep street diners warm as the weather cools down.

“The vibrancy we’ve seen in the city with Kirkwood being so pedestrian-friendly has only been better for businesses, especially during a time when we’re all struggling,” Cassady said.

He agrees with Bright, who for many years has advocated for Bloomington to remodel Kirkwood into a permanent, pedestrian promenade. But not all businesses are on board.

“Personally, the idea of these pedestrian Meccas is just silly,” said Jay Wilkin — manager of Tracks. As a retail store with no need for outdoor seating, he said non-restaurant businesses don’t benefit from closing Kirkwood and doesn’t see the logic in why people would flock to a space with no parking.

Director of Economic and Sustainable Development Alex Crowley said the city has seen a loss in parking revenue since closing Kirkwood, but he doesn’t blame the closure alone.

“It's a bit difficult to calculate the lost parking revenue given all the variables -- general COVID impact, revenue shifts to other meters and year-over-year construction,” Crowley said in an email.  “The revenue loss is not an insignificant amount of money, but exceedingly difficult to calculate.”

For the latest news and resources about COVID-19, bookmark our Coronavirus In Indiana page here.

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