ORLANDO, Fla. — The next phase of construction begins Monday along a popular Orlando road. The Summerlin Avenue improvement project is designed to replace 80-year-old pipes and improve pedestrian safety, but local businesses are feeling the burn, as they share road closures are impacting foot traffic as well.

What You Need To Know

  • Summerlin Avenue improvement project rolls out the next phase of construction

  • The Summerlin Avenue and South Street intersection will be closed starting April 28 for 150 days. With Summerlin Avenue from Robinson Street to Ridgewood Street also closing April 28 for 70 days

  • The improvement project follows a water main break in the same area back in 2018. City officials say the construction must be done now to replace 80-year-old pipes in order to avoid the potential of another water main break

  • The project is expected to be completed by early 2028

City officials said back in January that crews would work this project out in phases to try to curb some of the impacts of road closures. Phase one started back on Jan. 13, shutting down Summerlin Avenue and Robinson Street.

In the next phase starts on Monday, April 28, with the Summerlin Avenue and South Street intersection being close to through traffic for about 150 days. In addition to that, Summerlin Avenue between Robinson Street and Ridgewood Street will also close for about 70 days.

Spectrum News 13 spoke to a few businesses ahead of the construction starting and then shortly after the closures began happening.

RareTea general manager, Colleen Casey, said at that time that city officials had prepared businesses for this project by communicating ahead of time what was about to happen. While she shared that was helpful, she said that the impacts are already being felt just months into the project, with much of the tea shop’s foot traffic slowing down.

“Being on a business that is on a main street actually was a really big selling point for us because we were seen by a lot of people,” said Casey. “Now that, that street is not getting through traffic, we’re getting less and less new customers.”

Casey said that foot traffic makes up a lot of the shop’s business, but with the first phase of the Summerlin construction project lasting 90 days, they’ve seen that target audience slowing down as well.

“Summerline is kind of at a blockade. We have Washington but a lot of people don’t really know about it so, there’s less people and less foot traffic unfortunately,” she said. “That is 90% of these businesses. We’re mostly foot traffic.”

While the focus of the construction project is on replacing the old pipes, city officials say they’re also looking to improve pedestrian safety in the area by installing new pedestrian signals and other crosswalk and curb safety enhancements.