SIOUX CITY, IA -
One of the two Black Bear Diner locations in Sioux City suddenly shut its doors this week.
This morning, the restaurant's manager blamed
construction on Hamilton Boulevard for the closure. We went to see if
other businesses are feeling the construction pain.
"It saddens me that the landlord here will
not make some type of concession so that we are able to stay in
business. But, too little too late now," said Robert Byrne, Regional
Director for Black Bear Diner.
And item by item, employees at the Black Bear
Diner packed up what was left. Byrne said construction on Hamilton
played a big role in the decision.
"We could see that traffic was down by 50
percent, from the time we had opened the street had been worked on, so
we immediately asked for rent concessions because if we don't have the
business, we can't pay the rent," he said.
When we spoke with the city engineers in
charge of the Hamilton construction project, they estimate there has
only been a 5-10 percent decrease in traffic.
Byrne says that isn't the only reason they closed.
"We pay $44,000 in property taxes at this one. That's a lot of pancakes," he said.
Byrne says the 70 employees from the Hamilton location will be relocated to the Lakeport Commons diner for now.
Other businesses along Hamilton they say they are doing O.K.
"Overall I think were doing pretty well," said Tammy Donovan, Owner of Country Market.
Country Market opened up on Hamilton just two
and a half weeks ago, and they say they've already seen a difference in
sales since last year. But the owner says her customers find a way to
get to her business. Tammy did consider putting her stand somewhere else
this year, but decided against it.
"People were asking if we were going to be
set up here, and they were asking about us, so we thought we would go
ahead and set up in our same spot, so people would know where to find us
and I think it was a good decision," she said.
Donovan sympathizes with Black Bear Diner.
"I don't like to see any business close because they're not doing well, you know it's really unfortunate," she said.
When we spoke with Mayor Bob Scott, he said
back in February they held meetings to discuss options for the Hamilton
construction and Black Bear Diner didn't show up.
