Thursday morning, Corpus Christi city leaders celebrated the end of a nearly two year long construction project along a stretch of Alameda Street. In the background, the businesses along that road between Ayers Street and Louisiana Avenue were silently applauding as well.
“We’re just super happy that the street is done,” Alex Guerrero, manager of Price’s Chef said.
The restaurant that’s been in business for 79 years saw a couple of lean years during the construction project.
“We saw a good decrease of five, ten, 15-percent,” Guerrero said of his restaurant’s sales. “That cuts of hundreds of dollars each day, and that builds up.”
His joy will be relatively short lived. Sometime in the middle of 2020, construction will begin at an intersection less than a block away from Price’s Chef.
“Although we improved Staples, Ayers, and Alameda, the intersection was not included in any of those projects,” Corpus Christi’s Executive Director of Public Works Valerie Gray said. “We will come back with a Six Points Intersection Improvement Project which will improve the utilities, pavement, traffic signals, and the lighting in that intersection.”
But before that project gets started, customers of Price’s Chef and other Six Points businesses will have a year and a half to enjoy improved streets and an increased number of parking spots that the Alameda construction took away. Guerrero hopes that will encourage customers he lost during the road work to come back.
“We’re just ready to get the people back in here and remind them how good our food can be whenever there’s parking,” he said.
