Business hasn’t been the same for MoreLyfe Juice Co. owner Trinket Lewis ever since construction crews began a series of road improvements outside her store in Cascade Heights nearly two years ago.
The single mom and entrepreneur estimates her juice bar’s sales have decreased by as much as 72% since the Atlanta Department of Transportation temporarily closed parts of the 2-mile stretch of Cascade Road that runs east and west through her commercial district to finish phase one of the corridor’s Complete Street project.
Construction for the nearly $19 million initiative was supposed to start in November 2021, according to the city’s website, but business owners say the project has been delayed multiple times, adding to the timeline and their frustrations.
It’s designed to revitalize the area with transportation infrastructure upgrades, including fresh pavement, sidewalks, bike lanes, and bus stop enhancements to make it safer and more pedestrian friendly. But Lewis and other local small-business owners say the near-constant closure of Cascade Road has diverted traffic and customers away from their stores intermittently for one to two years.
Four of her six part-time staffers have quit since she was forced to cut their hours due to lost revenue. The nearby home, where she lives with her 10-year-old son, has gone in and out of foreclosure for about a year.
“It is a month-to-month survival,” Lewis told Capital B Atlanta on Monday. “I put most of my savings into this [business]. To see that slowly diminish away, not because I’m doing anything wrong, but because of decisions that the city is making, is heartbreaking.”
Lewis is one of more than 50 Black business owners in southwest Atlanta who participated in a Tuesday afternoon press conference organized by local community activists demanding compensation from city officials for yearslong sales declines that they say were caused by the Cascade Road Complete Street shutdown.
Rodney Mullins, founder of We Design Atlanta, a nonprofit working on economic and community development with southwest Atlanta entrepreneurs, said he’s helping the local business community create a recovery plan to save their stores. Part of that plan involves finding out exactly when the city expects to finish its Cascade Road Complete Street improvements.
“They have not been informed of the timeline of the project, they have not been given clear direction on how they can be more agile in this situation,” Mullins told Capital B Atlanta on Monday.
During the press conference, several business owners said city officials have offered them loans to help them stay afloat while the road improvements are made. Mullins said the city should be giving the community grants instead of loans. He noted that Atlanta City Council set aside millions to create a grant program for businesses impacted by the city’s major water main break last year.
That infrastructure failure only lasted about four days. The road improvements impacting businesses along Cascade Road have been going on an estimated two years.
“Can you imagine the city shutting down Peachtree [Street] for two years?” Mullins said. “Downtown, Buckhead and Midtown were given a $7.4 million fund [for the 2024 water main break]. My estimates are that this community will need twice that, because the duration of the infrastructure project was monumentally longer than what it was in Buckhead and midtown.”
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a Cascade Heights resident, also attended Tuesday’s press conference where he called on city leaders to do more to help save local businesses impacted by the Cascade Road construction and offered to call current Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens himself.
“I am afraid that we have not done what we need to do for our community,” Young told those in attendance. “I don’t know who’s fault it is, but let me know what you need me to do.”
He accused city leaders of doing more to help rescue business owners in neighborhoods like Buckhead and Midtown that were impacted by water main breaks this year than they have for Black business owners on the city’s southwest side.
In an emailed statement to Capital B Atlanta, Mayor Dickens’ office said Tuesday afternoon that he has assigned City of Atlanta Chief Operating Officer LaChandra Butler-Burks and Invest Atlanta CEO Eloisa Klementich to organize another meeting with the Cascade Heights business leaders “to review the timeline for the road closure and propose a plan to provide support to help affected businesses.”
The city’s aid won’t come fast enough to help Lance Robertson save his business. The former East Point city councilman said he closed his Cascade Heights health and wellness store, CBD City, toward the end of 2024 after his sales took a nosedive due in part to Cascade Road construction closures.
He now serves as director of government relations for Natson Hotel Group, but said he invested nearly $150,000 in CBD City before declining sales forced him to permanently shutter his store. As a result, Robertson said he struggled with depression.
“There should be some type of financial relief for the existing businesses that are there,” Robertson told Capital B Atlanta. “I do believe that sometimes some areas of town get more attention than others. That’s just proven. That’s life.”
