For the better part of a year, Burlington’s downtown business district has been in the grip of a massive utility overhaul that aims to replace the aging water and sewer infrastructure beneath this historic 16-block zone.
Even before contractors broke ground on this project last year, city officials realized that this multi-million-dollar endeavor would make life difficult for mom-n-pop retailers and other small businesses that inhabit the district. To ease the disruptions, the city has met with downtown merchants, sent out updates about utility work, and erected signage to help visitors negotiate the obstacle course of roadblocks and construction equipment.
The city has continued touting these measures as workers have transformed the district’s streets into a no man’s land of exploratory ditches and broken pavement. Yet, the efforts of municipal officials haven’t impressed everyone who works, shops, and plays at the epicenter of the utility overhaul.
Stephanie Braxton, the owner of a “houseplant boutique” known as Sursy, recently confronted Burlington’s city council about the conditions around her retail establishment at 341 South Main Street.
“For the past three weeks, the street in front of our business has been closed due to a planned plumbing project,” she recalled during a public comment period at the end of a city council meeting last Tuesday. “The way this project has been managed has caused serious challenges, not just for us but for the broader downtown community.”
Braxton, who moved into her storefront last May, went on to complain about the city’s communication with business owners about the utility work. She lamented that there has been no clear point of contact for people to air their concerns, a dearth of information about the project’s timetable, and an inadequate push to reassure residents “that downtown is still open” for business.
The morning after Braxton admonished the council, a visitor to the 300 block of South Main Street would’ve encountered a road barrier that explicitly declared the businesses beyond to be “open.” But the scene within the roadway was very much as Braxton described it – with hard hats and Day-Glo work vests outnumbering shopping bags.
In the week since Braxton appeared before Burlington’s leaders, contractors have reopened the 300 block of South Main Street as the nexus of their activities has shifted to another part of the business district. In the meantime, members of Burlington’s city staff have tried to dispel the notion that they’ve been utterly indifferent to the plight of Braxton and other downtown merchants.
“There’s no doubt that they’re feeling the strain and stress of all this,” John Vernon, a member of Burlington’s “community engagement” staff, acknowledged on Tuesday, “and we can always improve what we’re doing. But we’ve done a lot to make things easier for them.”
A perfect storm
The tumult that Braxton described to the council was originally set into motion in 2021 when the city secured $10 million from North Carolina’s General Assembly to repair and replace the business district’s utilities.
By the time Burlington’s leaders were ready to avail themselves of these funds, rising construction expenses had added another $6.1 million to the estimated cost of this project. Burlington’s city council ultimately extracted this cash from the city’s own coffers before its members gave the all-clear for work to proceed in January of 2025.
The city went on to enlist Jimmy R. Lynch & Sons to handle this project, which includes the replacement of 2 miles of antiquated water lines, the “rehabilitation” of a similar stretch of old sewer mains, and upgrades to 150 smaller conduits that connect these sewer mains to the district’s end users.
In the midst of this utility work, the city has also embarked on a much-publicized expansion of the Paramount Theater, whose digs at 128 East Front Street are located at a particularly busy locus within the business district. The theater’s dramatic makeover was one of three recreation-related endeavors that the city’s voters approved when they signed off on a $47-million bond package in the fall of 2024. The work on the theater was greenlit in the following spring at an estimated cost of $10.3 million.
[Story continues below photos of the Paramount Theater construction.]
In addition to these ongoing projects, the city is also preparing to launch a volley of “streetscaping” across the business district. This $5-million venture was part of another, infrastructure-based bond package that the city’s voters authorized as a separate ballot item in 2024.
Shovel ready
The city’s administrators had some inkling of the turmoil these concurrent projects would cause long before the first patch of pavement was torn up in 2025.
Earlier this year, Burlington’s economic development director Adam Shull, briefed Burlington’s city council on some of the measures that the city employed to soften the blow of the overhaul. During his briefing, Shull also touched on the public relations conundrum that confronted him and his colleagues as they braced for the business district’s makeover.
“When you look at the utility project at a high level it can be overwhelming,” he added during a city council work session on February 16. “There are lot of phases, and our contractors are doing the best that they can to describe when streets will be closed, for how long, and where streets will be closed.”
Shull recalled that, in advance of the project, the city held meetings with downtown merchants and others who frequent the district. He added that the city has gone on to issue regular updates via email as well as a mobile app called “What’s Up Burlington.”
Shull informed the council that the city has also tried to reduce the project’s interference with Burlington’s Link Transit bus system by its main transfer hub away from the epicenter of the utility work. Meanwhile, city staff have put up A-frame signs throughout the district to direct pedestrian traffic, point out free public parking to drivers, and provide those craving more details about the utility work with a QR code to scan into their phones.
Meanwhile, Morgan Lasater, Burlington’s director of community engagement, insists that the city has encouraged its contractors to remain mindful of business owners as they go about their activities.
“They’re trying to get the work done on time and within budget.,” Lasater added in an interview Tuesday. “But they’ve gone above and beyond to accommodate the merchants.”
In a subsequent statement about the city’s outreach, Shull assured The Alamance News that he and his colleagues have made a good-faith attempt to assuage the concerns of the business district’s merchants.
“City staff utilize all the available communication channels, public meetings, merchant-specific convenings, and one-on-one interaction,” he went on to explain. “Staff aims for perfect communication, but when that does not happen, we work quickly to make it right. If anyone wants to sign up to receive updates for city services and programs, including downtown construction project updates and information, please visit the What’s Up, Burlington? page at www.burlingtonnc.gov. Once someone signs up for updates about the construction projects, they will receive a text message, email or phone call with the latest information.”
The road ahead
The efforts of city officials may not have reached everyone who has set up shop within the business district.
During her appearance before Burlington’s city council, Braxton insisted that she had little advanced notice about the utility work within her own corner of this 16-block zone. She went on to contend that the abrupt descent of construction equipment was made all the more unendurable by her uncertainty about the project’s duration.
“These gaps have real consequences,” Braxton assured the city council. “For newer businesses like ours, prolonged disruptions can threaten our ability to remain open…and in the last month, our community has lost at least three businesses.”
Lasater conceded that, all told, six businesses have pulled up their stakes during the overhaul, although several of these closures occurred in the Burlington Food Hall – a business incubator on Front Street whose occupancy is often in flux.
“Three of them were in the food hall,” she went on to recall in an interview, “and there will be three more coming in to replace them.”
Lasater said that the business district has also bid farewell to Lizzy’s Playthings, Wild Flower, and the Owl & Rabbit – the latter having since reopened at a new location in Mebane. She added, however, that four other storefront businesses have, or are preparing to, move in the district, effectively repairing the losses since the project began.
In his aforementioned statement to The Alamance News, Shull acknowledged the “inconveniences and difficulties” that businesses have faced during the utility overhaul. He added, however, that the end result of this work will be a better, more resilient public infrastructure that will benefit everyone in the district.
“While largely unseen, modern water and sewer lines are essential to long-term health, safety, and to the growth of our community,” the city’s economic development director explained. “These improvements are designed to prevent more serious issues down the line, support future development, and ultimately create a stronger, more resilient downtown.”
Vernon, likewise, believes that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for business owners who are struggling to get through the current disruptions – and may be starting to second guess the advantages of a downtown location.
“In the long run, it’s going to improve their businesses,” he insisted. “They’re going to have infrastructure that works, an improved streetscape, and the additional draw of the Paramount Theater.”
