Business as usual

Parks work puts retailers in the hole

Sept. 9, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

WASILLA - Pat O'Donahue is going under, but she's not the only one. The owners of small businesses whose clients use Parks Highway entrances are putting up a fight. At a forum Thursday afternoon at the Alaska Club, they met with personnel from the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

The engineers from DOT explained how much money they were spending, how much they were doing with the money and how they were doing it.

The people who are losing money don't really care about engineering feats as much as they care about their livelihoods.

"Even longtime customers tell us they are avoiding the area," said Carole Coppock, who with her husband Dwight owns The UPS Store.

They said traffic routing was too unpredictable and people never knew what entrance to use from day to day. And there was no signage to indicate where business entrances were. Dwight Coppock said he had asked DOT to work in two shifts so the work wouldn't affect businesses so much, and the state told him it would cost too much.

"I guess that depends on who's losing the money," he said.

O'Donahue is a single mom who started Alaska Cheesecake. Last year, she built her business and was delighted to know she could make it on her own. This year, she said business is down one third to one quarter and she is praying she can get a bank loan to float her through until next year. For the past week, anyone who wanted a cheescake had to drive through the Fred Meyer parking lot and negotiate a berm large enough that many cars scrape bottom.

"I don't care how much DOT spends per day," she said. "I care that I'm losing $1,000 a week.

The forum was called together by Heather Wilkins, general manager of Creekside Plaza.

"I wanted to at least bring it to people's attention, Wilkins said. "If I'm having such a problem, I can imagine how much small businesses are struggling. Just last night, we found out the entrances would be closed today."

Better signs for the businesses would help.

When Rep. Carl Gatto, R-Mat-Su, suggested the owners make their own signs out of cardboard and use a progression of them to guide customers to their business, DOT told him those signs would be illegal.

"Legal smegal," Gatto said. "Gramma driving a Buick needs clear and direct signs and doesn't want to drive through construction zones. People are going out of business. In all those specs the engineers have, there should be some protective conveyance in the contract for people."

When O'Donahue opened Alaska Cheesecake after Thursday's meeting, the access road had been opened and a few cars were rolling by again.

But a customer trying to drive over the berm into the Fred Meyer parking lot bottomed out before her very eyes.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.