Businesses dying in construction zone

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It's Friday afternoon near Lead and Yale and besides the hum of bulldozers in the background, it's quiet.

That quiet is anything but peaceful for businesses like Casa de Piñatas, a custom piñata store less than a block from the intersection.

"Since they came and broke down the street, it's been hell to be honest," said Luis Rodriguez, whose family has been making piñatas at this location since the '90's. "It's just been a ghost town."

Luis' father, Francisco, shows KRQE's cameras around the store.

"I had about three times the candy I have now," said Francisco Rodriguez, remembering the time before the street shut down last summer. "Now, I have nothing."

A sign reading "Road Closed" sits at the intersection's entrance, right alongside a blue sign provided by the city indicating access is available. A mixed message that the Rodriguez family has had to live with.

If you look at its neighbors, Casa de Piñatas is lucky to still be open.

In that same strip mall, Steppn 2 Style boutique, Campus Corner Laundromat and a mobile phone store have all shut down. Oasis Salon is now running by appointment only.

Another vacant storefront sits on the corner. There's plenty of graffiti on the strip mall's awnings, doors and bricks.

A block up the road at the intersection of Lead Avenue and Cornell, all three businesses on this corner are closed or effectively out of business.

That includes Padilla's Automotive, which has a sign in its window telling customers it is now by appointment only.

If you cross Lead Avenue, you'll find the Saffron Cafe's doors locked tight.

Across Cornell Drive, Farm Fresh Produce Co. is now closed. It shut down in October, even after the property owner tried to cut the rent in half to keep the shop's doors open.

All of these businesses are inside of the construction zone for the massive $26 million Lead Coal reconstruction, a project that's lasted more than a year.

Mark Motsko with Albuquerque's Department of Municipal Development says he feels for businesses hurt by the construction but says the city did its best to steer customers their way.

"Ultimately it's unfortunate but we were hoping with the blue access signs [pointing to] access on the road during construction, people would continue to come down," said Motsko, who also pointed to a directory of local businesses posted on the project's website www.leadandcoal.com.

But Katie Calico, owner of art gallery The Talking Fountain, says calling the route the city has provided to get to her business "access" is a stretch at best.

To get to The Talking Fountain, customers need to park off of a small side street in another company's lot. They then need to walk through a narrow alley to get to the storefront.

Calico blames the months of this type of access as the reason The Talking Fountain is now open only online.

"I've pretty much had to close at this point," said Calico. "I'm not keeping regular business hours because it wasn't working... We're still here, we're still around, we just don't have a parking lot people can pull into."

Meanwhile, Francisco Rodriguez is wondering if he can make it to the late spring, early summer timeline the city has set.

"I don't know for how long we're going to keep going," said Francisco Rodriguez.

CORRECTION: In the broadcast version of the story, the Lead Coal project was referred to as having been underway for 18 months. The project broke ground in late October of 2010, closer to 15-16 months.