A traffic signal and barrels direct southbound vehicles into a single lane on State Street north of Main Street in Greenfield on Friday, June 3.
Mitchell Kirk | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD – You may have thought you were free of them after the last construction season, but orange traffic barrels have returned downtown.
These ones won’t restrict as much or remain for as long as the work on State Street in 2021. Worries persist, however, over the impacts to businesses for the second year in a row.
Starting last week, southbound State Street traffic has to merge into the left turn lane ahead of Main Street, as the right lane in that area has to be closed. The road restriction is expected to last through July.
It’s necessary due to improvements coming to the exterior of the Bradley Hall building at the northwest corner of State Street and Main Street. The property is one of four downtown structures that are part of a Main Street Revitalization Program through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. The grant provides $785,700 from the state along with a match of $238,222 from the building owners and city of Greenfield. It’s one of multiple components stemming from the state awarding the city into its Stellar Communities Program alongside Hancock County and Fortville in 2018.
One of Indiana’s oldest Masonic Temple buildings, the three-story Bradley Hall property was built in 1895 and houses a ballroom and event venue along with other businesses. Improvements slated for the exterior include power-washing, new gutters and tuckpointing mortar.
Joan Fitzwater, Greenfield planning director, said the partial road restriction wasn’t initially expected but is needed to accommodate a lift that will allow workers to reach the upper parts of the building.
“We needed a really big lift, and no one anticipated just how much space they’d need for that reach,” Fitzwater said. “So that has impacted the businesses and we want to make sure that people understand it’s for a really good cause, and that we really need everyone to help support our local businesses while that’s underway so that we don’t lose the people that we’re doing this for.”
Room needed for the lift won’t affect traffic on Main Street, but will result in blocking off some on-street parking in front of the Bradley Hall building.
The project comes just one construction season after major closures on State Street for resurfacing and other improvements.
Josie Joyner, an associate at Francis + Fern, a boutique in the Bradley Hall building, said the road restriction already seems to have had an effect on business. On its first day, she added, the store only had about a dozen customers.
“Definitely slowed it down a little bit,” Joyner said. “Because a lot of people that come in – they’re either out on the street doing stuff or driving by.”
Plans are in the works to remind customers the business is open and encourage them to stop in.
“I think we’re going to try to get some signs out, put a thing out on social media, all that good stuff,” Joyner said.
Other properties involved in the facade improvement grant include the HB Thayer Building, 13 N. State St.; Greenfield Christian Church, 23 N. East St.; Sonicu, 9 American Legion Place; and the Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce, 1 Courthouse Place.
The HB Thayer building’s former storefront was recently removed and it’s getting a new one closer to the style it had when it was originally constructed.
“That’s going to be really impactful because that’s one of the first buildings you see when you drive into downtown,” Fitzwater said.
Greenfield Christian Church got window repairs and improvements, basic maintenance is coming to the Chamber building and windows will return to the third floor of the Sonicu building like the ones it had when it was originally built.
Fitzwater said the Chamber and Sonicu projects will bring some road restrictions too, but only to on-street parking and for not as long as Bradley Hall.
When doing community outreach in the city’s early stages in the Stellar Communities Program, facade improvements received the second highest amount of support from the public, Fitzwater said.
“Preserving the historic buildings – not only does it create additional space for new businesses to come into, it attracts tourists,” she said. “Because people love that about downtown Greenfield. Once you see it, you’re drawn to this community and you would like to return. So it helps other businesses start to spruce up when they see all this work happening, then it’s worthwhile for them to also invest in their buildings.”
Fortville is also getting facade improvements through its involvement in the Stellar Communities Program to the town’s VFW post building and FoxGardin Kitchen & Ale.
The initiative follows Greenfield’s participation in a Main Street Revitalization Program in 2016 that improved 10 downtown buildings.
