Modern Barnyard, Opie's Gold Prepared for Bridge Closure

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- Two businesses on the west side of the Sauk River in St. Cloud are preparing for a long six months now that the County Road 75 bridge has been closed.

Customers of Modern Barnyard and Opie's Gold will have to go out of their way to find them during the construction of a new bridge.

The county has removed the center median from County Road 75 so that traffic coming from the west will be able to cross over and get into the Modern Barnyard driveway.

Modern Barnyard co-owner Jim Beck says they are telling their loyal customers how to get to them through their website and social media pages, but they are losing out on drive-by traffic.

Beck says the timing couldn't be worse with this being the busiest shopping time of the year.

November and December are the two busiest months of the year. Without the revenue from those it really will cause a struggle into January, February and March. Those are typically the three slowest months of the year for retail.

Beck says if you can't get to them in person, but you want to help them they are selling gift cards on their website which they will ship out the next day.

He says they are going to keep their regular hours and will stay open seven days a week.

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Meanwhile, Opie's Gold just opened its new location across the road from Modern Barnyard about a month ago. Owner Don Opheim says he was well aware of the bridge construction project, so it wasn't a surprise to him.

He chose that location because of the busy traffic count which he expects to increase his business by about 16 to 19 percent, the construction will delay that growth until the bridge reopens.

Opheim says he typically doesn't get a lot of walk-in customers. He says his biggest financial impact will be with his workers taking longer to get to-and-from job sites.

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Source: Modern Barnyard, Opie’s Gold Prepared for Bridge Closure

Categories: St. Cloud News