r/eastpoint • u/Drew2Read • Apr 17 '26

City Center East Point

I feel sorry for business owners in downtown.

The neighborhood is surrounded by roadwork that never seems to get done. Main Street has been wrecked for months. And its parallel road - is it Church Street? - is also narrowed with cones and construction.

It’s a horrible experience. Businesses have a rough go of it but this makes it next level worse.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

4

u/Acceptable_Mountain5 Apr 17 '26

The construction really doesn’t affect traffic to businesses that much. I live right near there, and I don’t have any problem getting to thumbs up, chairs, or Oz. The real problem with downtown Eastpoint isn’t the construction, it’s the local government, making it nearly impossible to actually start a new business in East point

2

u/BiggerE Apr 17 '26

It seems a pretty significant disruption to me. Eat My Biscuits owner was on TV late last year saying the construction was killing their business. It may not effect an EP resident, but is surely going to discourage anyone who is driving by from stopping in.

1

u/Acceptable_Mountain5 Apr 17 '26

Eat my biscuits opened during construction so they have had an uphill battle the entire time. As a resident I can tell you that while it may have messed up a couple street parking spots, it hasn’t had a huge effect on accessing businesses.

2

u/BiggerE Apr 17 '26

Having been through a sidewalk construction phase with my own business I can't agree. Construction deters people from stopping. If it had no effect you wouldn't see the city handing out grants.

2

u/Acceptable_Mountain5 Apr 17 '26

The truth is that if east point had invested in these infrastructure projects years ago when Hapeville and college park did we would be past this, but here we are and now it’s as good of a time as ever.

The city of east point has historically been very unfriendly to businesses and while these improvements are annoying, they are very much needed.

1

u/BiggerE Apr 17 '26

Actually East Point ripped up the sidewalks in the same sections of downtown maybe 7 years ago and imperiled business then. Curb appeal is going to help downtown.

Both points can be true. Subjecting business to a never ending construction project hurts business, while it can increase business when done. I think that East Point Council is realizing the impact and trying to mitigate says the most about our new City Council.

2

u/Drew2Read Apr 17 '26

That’s good.

As the song says, “It’s darkest right before dawn,” so perhaps this is peak construction and very soon we’ll have smooth roads, nee sidewalks and a robust downtown.