GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A rebuilt streetscape on Cesar Chavez Avenue near Clyde Park is complete, adding rain gardens, roadside trees and expanded sidewalks atop new water and storm sewer infrastructure, but the series of improvement projects on the southwest side thoroughfare is still having ripple effects on local businesses.
“Two years ago we had a huge construction, and it seems like we haven’t been able to recover from that,” Gilma De Lacruz, daughter of the founder of Rincon Criollo Restaurant, told News 8. “It was eight months where we were accumulating and accumulating debt and buying things and maintaining our team, but we weren’t having that foot traffic in here.”
De Lacruz’s restaurant sits just north of Clyde Park Ave, the first stretch of Cesar Chavez Ave to be revitalized back in 2024. Over the weekend, the restaurant shut its doors for good, citing mounting economic factors facing many restaurants right now…