Rice Village finds construction a tough competitor TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

Why Rice Village has a big headache

Monsterville Horton IV of Cova says the construction has taken a toll on his wine business. “You feel helpless. You can do promotions, but if people are avoiding the area, it doesn't matter,” he says. less Monsterville Horton IV of Cova says the construction has taken a toll on his wine business. “You feel helpless. You can do promotions, but if people are avoiding the area, it doesn't matter,” he ... more Photo: JULIO CORTEZ :, CHRONICLE Photo: JULIO CORTEZ :, CHRONICLE Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Rice Village finds construction a tough competitor 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The empty parking spaces at lunchtime are an uncanny sight, and the rumbling in the distance bodes ill.

Rice Village merchants have come to hear that sound as a harbinger of doomed sales, a menace that keeps shoppers at bay. It's the low, incessant grumble of track hoes on Kirby Drive.

And while shopkeepers say the construction on Kirby will pay off in the long term, it couldn't have come at a tougher time: in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The four-phase project to install new storm drainage along Kirby Drive started in 2004. The latest round peeled back the asphalt at the intersection with Tangley in April and is inching its way toward Bissonnet. City officials expect the phase to be complete by next August.

Shops and strip malls along Kirby have become temporary islands until asphalt isthmuses appear wherever the road is peeled up and put back in place.

On a recent Wednesday, a neon sign glowed “Open” in the window of a Subway franchise, its empty parking lot surrounded by a moat of torn pavement. Farther south, Shipley's is accessible, but the Starbucks across the street isn't. To get there, you'd have to make a left turn three blocks later and then double back on the side road where, earlier that day, a truck got tangled in electrical lines and knocked out power to an office building.

At Cova, a high-end wine shop, owner Monsterville Horton IV watched the confluence of three Cats gouging out the intersection of Kirby and Quenby, where traffic alternately stopped and lurched forward.

In recent months, Horton has had promotions to lure and reward customers for braving the bumpy road. He believed his stretch of street would be intact and open by the end of August, and then maybe he could stop giving away tapas at happy hour. Instead, the crews just moved to the other side of the street.

“I thought it would be done. But it's not, and it's not pretty,” he said. “You feel helpless. You can do promotions, but if people are avoiding the area, it doesn't matter.”

Retailers along Kirby say the wait has been agonizing, but the ripple effect of diverted traffic has even extended past the main thoroughfare, deep into the Rice Village shopping hub.

Tony Box's jewelry store, Box & Box, occupies a prime spot on Rice Boulevard, clear of the construction. But the parking spots outside are vacant. Box has seen an unprecedented ebb in foot traffic and believes many people have written off the entire commercial corridor.

“Customers have told me, ‘Kirby's a mess. I'll come back when it's done,' ” he said.

On Wednesday, Box sat in his store with two employees but no patrons, as dozens of wall clocks and watches in display cases ticked away the lunch hour — usually his busiest time, as customers drop in for repairs or cleanings.

The lag has put some neighboring stores in jeopardy, and it isn't doing him any favors, he said.

“We had the hurricane. We've got the economy,” he said. “Now we have so much construction choking off the arteries that feed us.”

Still, business owners who remember Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 don't take issue with the reason for the construction.

“It's going to save us a lot of hassle and headache,” said Aubrey Mendonca, who owns the Perimeter Gallery, an arts and framing store on Rice Boulevard. “I'm one of the highest-elevated stores in the Village, and I had a foot of water from Allison.”

Mendonca doesn't fault city engineers for the pace of construction: They're going as fast as they can, he says.

Public works spokesman Alvin Wright says the city has done what it could to accommodate commerce, including promising to halt construction between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“That's one of the biggest seasons for the Village,” Mendonca said. “They've kept us in mind.”

And he doesn't think construction alone will be fatal to any Rice Village businesses.

“We did see a few businesses fold because of the economy, but I don't think it's a danger of the construction.”

Plenty of customers on Wednesday found their winding way to Starbucks, where they lined up in a drive-through to nowhere — an arrow pointed them back through the parking lot and out the way they came in. At the sidewalk's edge, a track hoe scraped off asphalt and then clawed through concrete, dropping the chunks into a waiting truck bed with an industrial-strength crunch.

jennifer.latson@chron.com