Years into still incomplete construction along the Cascade Road Corridor in southwest Atlanta, community members turned to the Atlanta City Council to plead for support amid ongoing economic disruption.
Construction for the Cascade Road Complete Street project began in November 2021. While the project was meant to revitalize the community by resurfacing roads, extending bike lanes, and enhancing bus stops, business owners on the road say the road closure put in place in February 2024 has significantly harmed their businesses.
During the public comment at Aug 4’s council meeting, Cascade business owners described drops in sales and foot traffic, with customers now struggling to access their establishments.
“We opened our doors in 2022, and we were thriving, averaging 900 orders a month in our first year,” Trinket Lewis, the owner of MoreLyfe Juice, said. “Today, we are down to 380 orders. Traffic outside MoreLyfe has gone from a steady flow, used to be bumper to bumper, to just a trickle – sometimes one or two cars an hour.”
Angela Ingram, the owner of Café Bartique, said that she often gets calls from customers who say their five- to seven-minute drives to her coffee shop have reached upwards of 25 minutes due to the construction.
“We got a club now, not a club that any of us want to be a member of, but we do support and honor each other and listen to each other and all the issues that we have,” she said.
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Other businesses like Oreatha’s at the Point, J.R. Crickets, and Natalie Bianca are calling on the city to respond to what they deem an “emergency” with similar recovery support to what Buckhead and Midtown businesses received during last year’s water main breaks.
“Small businesses like mine are the heartbeat of Atlanta,” Trent Floyd, the owner of J.R. Crickets Cascade, said. “We create jobs, we serve our neighbors, and we believe in the communities we build in. But we cannot survive without access. We need answers, we need support, and above all, we need a clear, realistic timeline for when this construction will finally be complete.”
The entrepreneurs said they were offered 50 percent forgivable loans but no recovery grants. Devin Barrington-Ward, the Director of Communications at the National Police Accountability Project and a resident of Cascade, noted that the business district is historically Black and majority Black neighborhoods south of I-20 get treated like the Atlanta’s “red-headed stepchild.”
“Black businesses in the Cascade Road community and area that I live in have suffered from a construction project that was meant to bring safety and revitalization and instead, the prolonged infrastructure work has brought economic devastation to many of my friends and neighbors,” he said. “People have invested their whole lives into these businesses, and they need the city of Atlanta to recognize and honor that investment. We begged for businesses to come to this side of town, and now that we have them, we need to do right by them. Please do right by my neighbors and my friends.”