A Stamford business owner says the shutdown would have been an ideal time for the city to complete a construction project that he says was driving away customers, but it hasn’t gone as planned.

Donald Richner, president of Print Promowear, LLC, says the project was supposed to be completed at the corner of West Avenue and West Main Street last summer.

He says the construction equipment outside the business is driving people away in an already tough economic time.

Richner’s company has pivoted to masking custom face masks, but he worries people won’t be able to see his signs due to crews working in the intersection.

He says the timing of all this has been bad, but the city says their hands were tied because the crisis affected the availability of contractors working on the project.

"We did try to get the contractor to remobilize earlier and he was ready to do it, but he was alerting to us that he was having challenges getting workers there, and he had some of his workers impacted," says Jim Travers, the city's transportation, traffic and parking bureau chief.

Travers says he wants to make better accommodations for business owners. He says the project should be wrapped up in a month.

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