Arlee roads still messy

ARLEE — The town of Arlee looks deserted, except for the men and women in bright yellow vests and multicolored hard hats. The sidewalks and streets wait patiently to be paved, as anxious faces hang in the windows of local businesses, wondering when a customer will walk through the door.

Such has been the case since mid-March, when the resumption of construction in Arlee closed off Main Street, a small road dotted with businesses now parallel to U.S. Highway 93. Except for the construction workers wearing those bright vests, not too many consumers have visited these shops.

“Our adopted children; that’s what we call them,” Donna Mollica, co-owner of the Hanging Art Gallery said with a chuckle, referring to the construction workers who have taken over downtown.

There are plenty of reasons why Arlee is a ghostown, and all agree is stems from the construction. Mollica said because of different road closings and changes to streets, even locals “can’t come to stores the same way twice.” And though the construction in town is bad, the stretch of HWY 93 under construction between Missoula and Arlee is so torn up that tourists rarely come up that route anymore.

“AAA has recommended that tourists’ going to Glacier from Missoula head toward Seeley Lake (Montana Highway 83) rather than take (HWY) 93,” Mollica said. “This has been very hard for all of us.” 

Patti Johnson, owner of Rick’s Kustom Kut and the Pigasus Bar, two businesses on the south end of Main Street, has seen a drop of close to $150 a day in business at her convenience store.

“It’s pretty much shut town down,” she said. “At least the construction workers come in for lunch.”

The construction disruption has even reached the Arlee Public Library, which has seen a drop in people using the facility. Kim Folden, the library director, said  people signing up for the reading programs this summer was higher than last year, but the drop in attendees at weekly library events has offset that improvement.

“We never know from one day to the next what road would be open,” she said. “I can see it being especially hard (for a parent) with a carload of kids. The construction has affected us too.”

Despite the hardships the construction has caused this summer for local businesses, most agree that the town will benefit from the construction in the long run.

According to Missoula District Construction Engineer Ed Toavs, “90-95 percent of the paving is complete.” The main goal is to have the construction done by the end of August. When all is said and done, two lanes of northbound traffic will go through town on what is the old Main Street, giving people driving by access to all the businesses there. And, because of the addition of sidewalks, visitors will have better access to stores, which will hopefully help each business. Southbound traffic will travel on a newly built couplet to the west of town, but will still have access to Main Street. It was a long process to determine the traffic pattern, but Toavs believes they found the right one.

“It was between the Department of Transportation, the tribe and the public hearings,” Toavs said. “Any multiple lane option through town would be wider than what we’ve built.”

To Mollica, the construction is part of the “triple whammy of 2009: road closings, construction and the recession.” Yet the town has survived it all, and with major construction due to be complete in a few weeks, Arlee is ready to sparkle once again.

“It will definitely be pretty with the sidewalks and flowers,” Johnson said. “And it will make the streets safer in my opinion.”