Broughton St. ribbon cutting ceremony happening Wednesday afternoon

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Can you believe the construction on Broughton has been completed for almost two months now?

But Wednesday, the City of Savannah will hold a ribbon cutting for the streets official opening.

For years parts of this street were under construction, and although it looks good now some small businesses around the area won’t be able to enjoy the finished product.

One business in this area that didn’t want to be identified tells WTOC that they won’t be able to survive much longer due to the hardships caused by the construction. We also talked with one that did survive, Bluemercury makeup store, who says it was an incredibly difficult time for their bottom line.

The store’s manager Susan Silver attributes their ability to stay open to a strong local community that kept them going.

“From August, which is when I started until then, it was detrimental to our business. I didn’t anticipate the inability for any of my local clients to be able to park, if they did it was sheer luck and it was a lot of walking that they had to do so I’m very blessed that we have very loyal customers and a lot of them were willing to that but it was a lot of effort on their part,” said Bluemercury Store Manager Susan Silver.

Silver says throughout the construction business was sporadic, with certain days bringing in thousands of dollars and others seeing almost no customers. She also mentions the City temporarily opening the street around the holidays was a big help while the project was still going on.

The City is marking Broughton Street’s opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony, at the intersection with Bull Street, at 2 p.m. on the compass rose.

The Savannah Bee Company, who has their flagship location on Broughton Street, says foot traffic has been really good since then. The team lead at the store tells us while construction was going on many people just didn’t know they were open, but in the last few months since the construction was completed, they’ve seen a complete 180.

While they say the bottom line has been much healthier since January, they’re hoping to get back to the levels of a few years ago after Wednesday’s event.

“We welcome people with open arms, we’re here both doors open. We’re ready to have the amount of people we had in here pre-construction pre pandemic as well because that’s when people were really really in here. These guys don’t really know it, but business used to be booming in here and so we’re hoping to get just that trajectory back,” said Savannah Bee Company Team Lead Kirsten Tatom.

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