TOLEDO, Ohio —
For El Rincon, a Mexican restaurant in south Toledo, the past four months have been rough.
Just outside the restaurant's door, Broadway Street has been completely ripped up for construction. The owner's son, Geovani Rodriguez Juarez, says this has caused a loss of 75% of its business.
"We're very limited in how many people we can get and that obviously affects our sales and everything quite significantly," he said.
A new project proposed by Toledo City Council members Theresa Gadus and Adam Martinez would grant financial support to small businesses, like El Rincon, impacted by construction.
"We want to use this as a 'lessons learned' pilot project for future road construction in our community," Martinez said.
The Legacy Corridor Construction Mitigation Program Grant would only benefit businesses in the city's legacy corridors — communities that formed when the city started growing.
"This isn't new or unique to the city of Toledo. Programs like this have been done in Salt Lake City, Oregon, and Seattle," Martinez explained.
Council still has to discuss the initiative and vote on it, but if passed as proposed, up to $100,000 would be allocated from the general fund to grant businesses up to $5,000.
To qualify, businesses would have to have been running for at least a year prior to construction, employ 50 or fewer employees and rely on foot traffic. Business would also have to have brick-and-mortar storefronts and be within a one-half block of a construction project that will last more than six months, among other qualifications.
"The thought was around $5,000 to help with a variety of overhead and expenses to keep doors open, pay rent, utilities, insurance, anything a business would need to operate," Martinez said.
A proactive measure to help businesses before construction begins would also be included.
"Getting small businesses ready ahead of time, letting them know this is coming, there's a whole strategic communications plan, making sure they have enough resources ahead of time," Martinez added.
Rodriguez Juarez says a program like this would make a massive difference for his family's business and many others like it.
"It would definitely help us be able to expand ourselves, help us out in many ways with many of the costs, paying the employees. It's been a struggle," he said.
There is no timeline yet as of Tuesday for when city council will discuss and vote on the measure.