Construction nightmare forces one Cape Coral business to temporarily shut down

Businesses along one Cape Coral road say they’re losing money as a construction project continues to keep customers away.

It’s all happening along 47th Terrace where the city of Cape Coral is working to renovate downtown.

Right now, construction is inching slowly down the street, moving closer to a sub shop. It’s a mess the businesses don’t want their customers to deal with.

Dr. Louis Scoma is a chiropractor with an office on Southeast 47th Terrace.

“Yeah my patients are complaining about getting to see us. They don’t know where to park, the one way streets, the flags, the road’s torn up,” Scoma said.

Since the beginning of the project, the city promised business owners they’d advertise that all the shops and stores were open on electronic billboards when driving into the city. But as of Thursday, they haven’t found the space to do so.

In the meantime, others aren’t willing to see things get worse than they already are.

“The inconvenience to everyone just getting here, I mean really we don’t need anybody having to crawl through a thousand miles of construction, and all the dirt and dust and everything else that’s gonna be floating around to get a sub, it doesn’t make sense,” said Mauricio Pelletier, operations manager with City Subs.

And because of the ongoing construction nightmare, City Subs says they’ll be locking their doors next week.

“We figured it would be better for us to do like a two or three week shutdown, while the major part of the construction comes down, and then we open it in a much better way,” Pelletier said.

He adds that it took weeks to make that decision, but hopes customers will come right back once the construction is complete.

“We’re definitely taking a hit, don’t get me wrong on that, but I think the outcome is gonna be a good thing,” he said.

The city says the project is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

City Subs says they’ll close down next Friday and hope to open back up again sometime in early August.