CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — A 6-month closure at the Centerville Turnpike Bridge in Chesapeake left businesses in the area scrambling to stay open.
10 On Your Side spoke with a local shop near the bridge about three months ago. We went back to see how they’ve been doing since it reopened, and the owner says they’re still not out of the woods.
Karen Bryan, the owner of the Vintage Vibe on Centerville Turnpike Road, said the store struggled financially through the closure that lasted from August of last year to last month.
RELATED: Centerville Turnpike Bridge closure expected this weekend
“It felt so good that very first day. Traffic flowing, they started coming in, they were buying,” Bryan said.
That’s how Bryan describes the day the bridge opened in the middle of February.
“We had to go down to three days a week because we just weren’t getting the customers in that we would normally get with the road open.”
The store is back to six days of business a week. Bryan said the store’s landlord pitched in to help the shop stay open. Everything seemed to be looking up.
“You know, we’ve got the wind in our sails, and we’re starting to move forward again, then we get hit with the news that it’s going to be closing on the weekends,” she said.
Officials with the City of Chesapeake said the bridge still needs more work and will be closed for a few weekends ahead.
“Are you kidding us? We are just now moving forward,” she said.
Moving forward with a fear that things will go back to the way they were.
“Get this done,” she said. “We need to be able to have this traffic flowing and it needs to be done already.”
RELATED: Centerville Turnpike Bridge’s 6-month closure already troubling for nearby businesses
Officials with the city say there will be about two or three weekend closures to finish up more repair work. They say the work is minor and some of it couldn’t get done until the bridge saw traffic again.
The bridge will close this weekend on Saturday at 5:30 a.m. and will reopen Sunday evening.
If you have any concerns on the roads, contact Traffic Anchor Madison Glassman.
