FRESNO, Calif. \u2014 A downtown Fresno restaurant says an upcoming street closure tied to California High-Speed Rail construction could further worsen an already difficult situation for the business.<\/p>\n
Libelula Restaurant, located in downtown Fresno, says it has already seen a significant drop in customers following the sudden loss of a parking lot across the street. <\/p>\n
The owners estimate revenue has fallen by roughly 50% since the lot closed, cutting into foot traffic that once supported the business.<\/p>\n
The owners, Kim and Ian Cookson, say the parking lot closure now confirmed to be owned by the California High-Speed Rail Authority was only the beginning of ongoing challenges affecting access to their restaurant.<\/p>\n
Now, they are preparing for another major disruption. <\/p>\n
Starting Monday, Fresno Street will be closed for about a year as part of high-speed rail construction for an underpass project, limiting direct access to the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of this has happened really quickly, especially for us and we’re honestly not sure. We would like to be able to stay here. It just looks like it’s not going to be easy,\u201d Ian said.<\/p>\n
Ian and Kim said the short notice left little time to adjust operations or plan for the impact of reduced traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey gave us two weeks to let us know that Fresno Street would not have any traffic anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also described detour routes as inconvenient for customers, saying they loop far around downtown and do not provide easy access to the restaurant.<\/p>\n
Construction is expected to last about a year, though the owners say they are uncertain whether the timeline will stay on track. <\/p>\n
They pointed to other businesses in nearby areas, including Chinatown, that have experienced similar disruptions.<\/p>\n
Ian said, \u201cThey’ve been dealing with this for a long time, and they’ve weathered most of the storms, but just that…the people that we know, have a little bookstore over there, they were open there for about a year and they said, just in the year that they were down there, they saw five other businesses close. <\/p>\n
Despite concerns, the owners say they plan to remain open as long as possible, though they acknowledge relocation could become a last resort.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease continue to come out support us and not only us but other businesses in downtown,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The Cooksons also say this is not the first time they have been impacted by the high-speed rail project. <\/p>\n
They recalled a previous incident in which planter boxes outside their business were removed without notice to install PG&E utility infrastructure tied to the rail project.<\/p>\n
They say the planters were later replaced in a different location.<\/p>\n
FOX26 asked the California High-Speed Rail Authority spokesperson what the HSR is doing to assist these affected businesses or are there programs they can apply for? <\/p>\n
The following statement was provided to us: \u201cThe California High-Speed Rail Authority and its contractor are working with Libelula Restaurant and Crest Theatre to help mitigate the impacts to their businesses while Fresno Street is closed starting April 20 for construction of an underpass.”<\/p>\n
Construction on Fresno Street is expected to continue for approximately one year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRESNO, Calif. \u2014 A downtown Fresno restaurant says an upcoming street closure tied to California High-Speed Rail construction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-272141","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}