City officials reopened the intersection of East César Chávez Boulevard and South Alamo Street at noon Tuesday, saying the intersection would remain open for traffic while construction continues.
Motorists traveling both directions on César Chávez will be able to turn south onto South Alamo Street into Southtown, and the street will not be closed to northbound traffic after all.
That’s because once the road was excavated, the contractor alerted the city that the utility work could be moved to the center of the intersection, allowing traffic to flow around it.
“With this underground work, we don’t always know what we’re going to find,” said Assistant City Manager Rod Sanchez. “Our contractor saw an opportunity to move the work and open the intersection to go south, so we took it. We’re pleased that we were able to do that, and be able to minimize the impact to those businesses.”
City officials spent Tuesday morning going door-to-door in the area and speaking with businesses about the change.
“They were pleased,” Sanchez said.
Taylor Figueroa, chef-manager at Dough, located on the northeast corner of the intersection in Hemsifair, said he spoke to a couple of people from the city Tuesday morning.
Intersection construction has now moved to that quadrant. The timeline for completion remains mid-November, but traffic will no longer be closed in any direction. The full South Alamo Street Project, which runs from César Chávez to Market Street, is expected to be complete in early 2025.
“We’ve been updated fairly well,” Figueroa said, noting that the street work along South Alamo hadn’t affected the restaurant’s business. “It hasn’t been negative for us at all.”
Other business owners, who watched what happened to businesses on the St. Mary’s Strip during two years of construction, complained that they either missed the city’s emails, in-person outreach and flyers, or felt they didn’t have enough time to sufficiently prepare for the impact the intersection closure could have.
District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur, whose office has been working closely with affected businesses to develop signage and other mitigation efforts, said in a statement that she’s pleased the intersection is reopening sooner than expected.
“As work shifts to the north side of the intersection, my office will continue to partner with the city to ensure all stakeholders in the area are supported and well-informed,” she said in the statement. “Should additional work be needed, I look forward to including Southtown neighborhoods and businesses.”
The city, too, said it will continue communicating traffic and construction work updates through emails, media outreach, social media and regularly scheduled public meetings.
