Fortville business owners reeling from road construction

Broadway Street in Fortville is a mess of orange construction cones and heavy equipment, with traffic backing up at rush hour and nobody getting anywhere quickly.

It’s been this way for 16 months. With just one narrow lane open in each direction—that’s an improvement from a year ago when only one eastbound lane was accessible—traveling on Broadway is a headache for people trying to go home, visit a local business or drive through the Hancock County town.

The Broadway Street reconstruction project, which started in April 2023, is expected to improve the area for businesses and residents when it’s finished in November, creating a walkable and more attractive thoroughfare. But the cost is heavy for business owners hoping to survive month to month.

Judy Fuchs, owner of Broadway Diner at 426 E. Broadway St., looks to the warm-weather seasons to carry her restaurant through the winter, when fewer customers walk through the doors to order a breaded tenderloin or homemade chicken and noodles. But the diner’s booths and chairs have been mostly empty the past two summers.

Last year, many customers needed to detour up to 5 miles to reach the restaurant. With one lane now open in each direction, getting near Broadway Diner is easier this summer, but Fuchs said accessing the restaurant’s parking lot on the south side of the street is still a challenge.

“Our sales have been down 50% last summer and 40% this summer. It’s just not sustainable anymore,” Fuchs said. “Broadway Diner used to support me and my family. Now, I’m supporting it and the 20 people that work there.”

The Indiana Department of Transportation and Indianapolis-based Milestone Contractors are rebuilding a 1-mile section of Broadway Street, also known as U.S. 36 and State Road 67, from Garden Street to Madison Street (S.R. 13). The $8.3 million project is funded by the Federal Highway Administration and state and local sources.

The project will reduce the number of lanes on Broadway from four to two and add a two-way turn lane in the middle. Kyleigh Cramer, a spokesperson for INDOT’s East Central District, said crews first reconstructed the south side of Broadway last year and began work in November on the north side. That work continues.

To make Fortville more walkable and accessible, a paved multi-use path with lighting, benches and bike racks is being built on the north side of the road, while a sidewalk is open and accomodates pedestrians on the south side. The paths along both sides of Broadway will be compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

Crews are also reconstructing the intersection of Broadway and Maple streets to address traffic signal failures and long wait times. Maple Street will be widened ahead of the intersection to provide turn lanes onto Broadway. Maple remains closed on both sides of the intersection.

The Broadway Street project is known as a “road diet,” which means a roadway is narrowed to slow drivers and provide a safer atmosphere for pedestrians and bicyclists.

“Broadway has never been a walkable road. Back in the day, before they built the interstate, that was the main thoroughfare,” said Fortville Town Council President Tonya Davis, who meets with INDOT and Milestone representatives every other week. “I think once it gets done, it’ll be a good thing.”

Trying to persevere

Small-business owners are used to challenges. Zach and Krista Schuyler, who own Music Garage at 211 W. Broadway St., certainly have had their share since they opened their first location in downtown Fortville during the pandemic in October 2020.

A fire on Dec. 31, 2022, at the adjacent Japanese sushi restaurant Bonsai caused $100,000 worth of damage to musical equipment, along with heat, smoke and soot heat damage to their 3,200-square-foot space.

Today, the Schuylers employ 11 instructors at a 5,800-square-foot building where they train more than 200 students how to make music and enforce the idea that failure is OK when you’re learning.

“We didn’t know if we would reopen or not, but we did,” Zach Schuyler said.

Music Garage initially was insulated from road construction challenges, he said, but this year, his clients have reported difficulties in reaching the business after work crews deconstructed the roadway on the north side of Broadway.

A temporary driveway leads from the road to Music Garage. One student from out of town called him and said she had to go “off-road” when construction equipment blocked the entrance.

“I was like, ‘What do you mean? Where’d you go?’” Schuyler said. “And she goes, ‘Well, I took my little Kia over curbs and through grass behind Dollar General to get to you. I don’t know the area well enough to be rerouted, but there’s no way into any of the businesses on the side.’”

Schuyler said the finished product of the construction project will be positive for Fortville, but he wonders if it will be worth the pain.

“All in all, is it going to be a good thing for our community? For sure. How can it not be? Giant sidewalks, architectural lighting and seating, bike racks and stuff. That’s cool,” he said. “But, man, the cost of it, I don’t know. I don’t know if the costs outweighed it.”

Across the street from Music Garage at Elite Beverages, 308 W. Broadway St., a 20-foot pink elephant keeps watch over construction. Ray Cox, whose Elite Beverages chain also includes shops in Cumberland, McCordsville and New Palestine, said the road project is “a necessary evil” that has hurt the bottom line of his Fortville store.

Last year, his business was down 35%, and overall, he is down 25% since early 2023.

“It’s really had a pretty big adverse effect on not only us but everybody in the construction area,” Cox said. “And even people that aren’t in the construction area because it’s very, very hard to get anywhere now in Fortville.”

At least three businesses on Broadway—Dairy Queen, Urban Forest Designs and Sunrise Bakery—have closed since construction began. Sunrise Bakery operated for 10 years at 101 W. Broadway St., while Dairy Queen was at 346 W. Broadway St. at least 20 years.

Susan Kitterman, former co-owner of Sunrise Bakery, declined an interview request from IBJ. But in a Greenfield Daily Reporter story published in January, she said road construction had been a contributing factor to declining sales. A new restaurant, however, called Du Lit has since opened in the same spot.

Lee Kleiner, a franchisee who operates about 20 Dairy Queen locations in central Indiana, said he had an offer from a developer to sell his land, and the Broadway project made his decision easier.

“Our business was down substantially. It wasn’t making any money,” he said. “I got a good offer. The road construction was really bad and was really impactful to our business, and it just made sense for me.”

Along with the loss in revenue, Kleiner said, other factors like construction-related damage make life difficult for business owners.

“Your filters and your air-conditioning units are just dirty and caked with dust and dirt. And it just takes a couple of those trucks to pull into your parking lot and it tears it up,” Kleiner said.

Cramer said INDOT has worked with business owners throughout the project to hear their concerns and hosts town halls on the first Monday of each month.

“[At the town halls,] crews provide an update on the project and forecast what to expect for the upcoming month,” she said. “Outside of the town halls, crews have worked with business owners to provide temporary driveways for the motoring public. INDOT has worked with and will continually work with the local businesses on updates for what to expect as we close the project.”

Open for business soon

Fritz Fentz, owner of Denver’s Garage Pizza and Brews at 110 E. Broadway St., spent the slow months last year painting cartoon figures like Popeye the Sailor and the Minions on the back of the mid-century-modern building that houses his restaurant.

He opened the pizza joint in 2021 as pandemic-era restrictions lifted, and most of his customers come from Fishers, which is just across the county line from Fortville.

“Customers were so happy just to be here,” Fentz said, describing when he opened Denver’s. “It was a good, good feeling … but when they took out our road, [our sales] went down by half.”

With Broadway inaccessible from the west last year, many of his regulars found somewhere else to eat, leaving him plenty of time to give the building a face-lift.

Fentz, a member of the Fortville Town Council, also owns a ServiceMaster home services franchise, which helped him keep the doors open at Denver’s, where he regularly hosts live music.

Fentz sees himself as a community advocate in his dual roles as town councilor and restaurant owner, and now he’s getting ready for what comes after Broadway Street reopens this fall.

He is preparing to spread the word that Fortville will be back open for business. Despite the pain over the past 16 months, he said the reconstructed Broadway will be good for the town. He said he looks forward to seeing residents use the sidewalk to get to Broadway Street businesses.

“[I’m telling] business owners just to hold on. This will be over soon,” he said. “When this is done, there are going to be other restaurants that want to gravitate here.”

Broadway Street, with its 13,000 cars per day, is Fortville’s billboard for people driving through town, he added.

“I’m just glad now that the billboard of our town is going to look really nice when people drive through,” Fentz said. “It’s a lot of pain, but we’re going to make it.”•