By Christopher Butler

The government officials who voted in favor of last year’s federal stimulus funds promised the money would jump-start our nation’s economy. Some of those stimulus funds, however, have had the opposite desired effect for a few Tennessee business owners, and they and their employees are suffering financially as a result.

Sevier County business owner Rick Arnold, for instance, expected brisk business this year.

Arnold and other business owners who have businesses along Tennessee Highway 66 in Sevierville have advantages that their competitors would no doubt envy. For starters, they each own a business along the main thoroughfare that leads from Interstate 40 into the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. They also own their businesses in what many people consider a popular resort area.

Business revenue, however, hasn’t met expectations for this calendar year. Business is nowhere near what Arnold expected for his Jersey Mike’s sandwich restaurant, especially compared to revenues from 2009. Incoming revenues for 2010 are barely enough to keep him in business, he said.

“In terms of business, we are down 30 percent from before. When you take the numbers day to day, we are doing half of what we should be doing. We also decided to close our business on Sundays, which is something we’ve never done before,” Arnold said.

Arnold and the other business owners aren’t blaming a downturn in the economy for most of their problems. They instead blame their troubles on a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) highway construction project currently taking place on a four-mile stretch of Highway 66, directly in front of their businesses. That project has kept most of their usual customers, not to mention potential new customers, away, they said.

No one wants to meander through most of the hazardous construction work or any of the accompanying gridlock that forms as a result just to eat at Arnold’s restaurant.

Construction workers started the highway project in July 2009. They expect to finish that project in November 2011.

TDOT officials are using some of last year’s federal stimulus funds, $38 million, to pay for the two-year project. The highway currently has two lanes, but the stimulus money will pay for a third lane, plus a 12-foot wide shoulder area that people may use to park their stalled vehicles, said Jennifer Stone, project manager with MACTEC Engineering, the Alpharetta, Ga.-based consulting firm that is overseeing construction work on the highway.

Arnold believes that government officials ought to have a blueprint for future growth, but he’s not impressed with the way they planned this construction project.

“This project is the largest stimulus funded project in the entire state, and it has managed to drive a lot of us out of business out here in Sevierville,” Arnold said.

“This highway construction project has just about managed to kill our business. I’m only hanging around out of stupidity, I suppose. I’m in a shopping center, and other large businesses have already moved out of here,” Arnold said.

When times are good, Arnold normally has six to eight employees. Because of decreased business from the construction project, he now has four employees.

‘They just ramrodded this project through’

The officials responsible for the project held a public hearing before the project began – but they gave business owners little time to digest everything that was about to happen, said Fred Ware, who owns a Zaxby’s restaurant on Highway 66.

“They did not give me the opportunity to have my say before they started. They just ramrodded this project through. They said ‘Just come to the civic center to see what will be done. There was no chance for us to make comments or appeals or anything. We (the business owners) expressed our concerns about the matter, but the wheels had already been set in motion,” Ware said.

He and Arnold are upset that government officials never gave them and other business owners a chance to speak out against, or at least question, the project before the public meeting took place – government officials scheduled the meeting after state officials had already approved the project, they said.

“I would have questioned how the project was handled and made sure it was completed in a timely manner. That’s where we are being failed by our representatives,” Arnold said.

Stone confirmed that a public meeting took place. “This meeting was held after the construction contract was awarded, but before the actual construction process started,” Stone said.

Business owners complain to Stone, but she tells them that a reconstructed highway will improve the flow of traffic and access to their businesses.

“This project has stimulated our economy. The prime contractor is locally based, here in Sevierville. It saved 130 of their employees from being laid off and helped add 30 new jobs at that,” Stone said.

Some of the business owners disagree on whether the project benefits Sevierville. “I don’t think the project was needed. They aren’t widening the road into (nearby Pigeon Forge). They are just widening it here (in this immediate area). It’s caused a bunch of headaches, I can’t see the benefit of it. Traffic does back up during summers, but it’s still backed up in Pigeon Forge, where they did no road widening,” said Ware.

Ware has no plans to move his business away from the construction site, even though it might help him. “It’s just too cost prohibitive to move,” Ware said. Arnold, who has experience in the construction industry, believes that Sevierville residents need an expanded highway – but he can’t understand why this project will take more than two years to complete, he said.

“If this project was almost over now, then I think that we would be all right because we would have endured only a year of this lost business,” Arnold said.

Ware sees no evidence that the stimulus money has done anything other than harm his restaurant. “We were told this project would put local people to work. We were told that construction workers would come in to eat, but that never really materialized,” Ware said.

Arnold, meanwhile, says he has lost many of his loyal customers because of the construction. “Sevierville is our county seat. We have lost virtually all our lunch crowd from attorneys’ offices. People avoid this entire area like it’s the plague,” Arnold said.

Arnold now worries about having to close his business permanently within the next six months if business doesn’t improve. Arnold is also fighting to keep his house out of foreclosure, which is a result of his business problems, he said.

“I’m scared, and I’m embarrassed, but I’m not afraid to let people know what we are going through. This is putting a strain on my budget. I am continually taking money from my savings, all in the hopes that things are going to get better,” Arnold said.