Things have not been so cheerful lately at Cheers Bar & Grill.
The downtown Tacoma restaurant is one of a half dozen businesses left high and dry by commuter rail construction on the lower end of Pacific Avenue.
Installing the new commuter rail link to Lakewood and South Tacoma requires lowering a portion of Pacific Avenue by as much as 17 feet, a job that means removing about 500,000 tons of earth.
The excavation, which now resembles a bomb crater, cuts to within three feet of the Cheers deck – where the tables lately have been empty.
A block north, the iconic Elephant Car Wash is open but ringed by chain-link construction fencing, as is the Lighthouse Diving Center across the street.
“Our business is down maybe 50 percent,” Cheers owner Ali Kashi said recently. “People are totally avoiding that area because of the construction. They say, ‘Oh, it’s just too hard to get around.’”
The Pacific Avenue businesses, already struggling because of the recession, face several more months of limited access. Sound Transit doesn’t expect the $1.6 million project to be finished until July 2012.
“We know it’s difficult, and we appreciate everybody’s patience,” Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick said. “We’re putting a lot of focus on making sure we highlight and promote the fact that businesses are still open.”
The transportation agency has assigned a business liaison and maintains a 24-hour hotline businesses can call with construction-related issues. Signs at the perimeter of the work area say, “Businesses are Open During Construction.”
And, according to Brooke Belman, Sound Transit community outreach director, the agency is doing its best to maintain open and constant communication with affected businesses.
“One of our biggest mottos is: ‘No surprises,’” Belman said. “We have a strong commitment to keeping businesses informed with advance notifications.”
The 1.4 miles of construction, which Sound Transit calls the D-to-M Streets Project, will connect existing rail lines with a link between East D and South M streets.
Making the link requires three new railroad bridges, including a massive overpass across Pacific Avenue. When the project is finished next year, Sounder commuter rail service will be extended to South Tacoma and Lakewood stations.
Business owners are generally enthusiastic about the final configuration, but getting there is a painful process.
“We thought about moving, but when I shopped around looking for other locations, the rent was too high and the parking was lousy,” said Randy Bierbaum, manager of the Lighthouse Diving Center. “We’re going to weather the storm.”
Kashi, the owner of Cheers, also thinks that when the project is finished, improvements will have made the area more appealing to customers than it was before.
“That’s why we are waiting it out,” he said.
But he’s already impatient.
“We’re all wondering why they don’t put on a double crew so they finish sooner,” Kashi said. “They’re done every day at 2 o’clock.”
Eric Beckman, the D-to-M Streets Project director at Sound Transit, said a 24-hour work schedule was not considered necessary for the Tacoma project.
Running continuous work crews is not only more expensive, he said, it’s also less efficient.
“Studies have shown that night shifts are from 10 to 30 percent less efficient,” Beckman said.
Beckman explained that the job is divided into three major phases.
First, crews had to relocate large diameter pipelines that carry storm water and sewage.
The second phase, in which they’re currently engaged, entails dropping the level of Pacific Avenue so the railroad can cross over it and digging holes for the piers that eventually will support the overpass.
The piers will be massive: 8 feet in diameter and 90 to 95 feet deep.
The current phase also entails drilling holes for the pilings that will support two other smaller railroad bridges in the project: One over A Street and the other over the B Street gully.
The final and longest phase consists of rebuilding the roads and restoring curbs, gutters, sidewalks, pavement – as well as work on the rail corridor.
Testing on the rail lines will take place in the fall of 2012, Patrick said, and regular commuter service should begin late in the year.
One afternoon last week, as the earth movers and cranes worked, there was only one car in the parking lot behind the Lighthouse Diving Center.
It belonged to manager Bierbaum who – except for a large black lab sleeping near the cash register – was by himself in the store.
Bierbaum says business at the dive shop is definitely down, but he thinks the overall economic climate is hurting more than the construction.
“This is a destination store, so we’re not hurting as bad as some of the others,” Bierbaum said. “We have an edge over the impulse places.”
And things aren’t as bad as they look, he said. The store also offers diving lessons, he noted, and those still fill up the parking lot.
“We’ll have a class this weekend, and the lot will be full,” he said.
Bierbaum is looking on the bright side. He believes the construction will extend the revitalization of Pacific south from downtown and eventually increase business.
“Once it gets done, the area is going to be improved,” he said. “ We’re talking about painting our building and maybe even putting up a mural.”
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