On Aug. 2 the Third Avenue Village Association held its first street closures to bring more pedestrian traffic to Chula Vista’s downtown area and allow businesses to move out onto the streets. Third Avenue was closed from E Street through Center Street.
This stretch of the Third Avenue Village will be closed to vehicle traffic each Sunday in August, and opened up for outdoor dining options, business exploration and walking and cycling space, while allowing patrons to visit the village safely during the COVID-19 pandemic.
TAVA events manager Kelly Lannom said it was “a very good day” in the village.
“I can tell you that it served its purpose to bring out the community and safely be able to showcase Third Avenue and let businesses expand into the street for curbside dining,” said Lannom. “One of the problems that our businesses are having of course is social distancing, which is also important, but with the distancing you have a big difficulty of being able to serve enough people, whether the rules are indoor or outdoor only. Either one affects them. Having that curbside expansion and allowing people to walk down that street safely spread apart was really great. It was good for the community as well as businesses.”
Lannom said that many businesses she spoke with said their numbers were up from past weeks. Not only financially, but with people on the street they saw more people show interest in their businesses.
“The people on the street that I spoke to, both patrons and visitors of the village, all were happy and very excited about it,” said Lannom. “There were children riding around on scooters on the street, adults dining and it was really lovely to see a lot of families.”
Lannom said the street expansion will continue every Sunday in August which gives downtown five Sundays from 12-8 p.m.
“We did not do a one-day trial, we are doing the month and we would like to see how the numbers grow and whether it is prosperous for our businesses. It looks like it is going to be beneficial to them and our community,” said Lannom. “The TAVA Board of Directors voted on this and they chose a Sunday. The reason is that on Sunday some of our businesses are open and some are not. And it gave businesses a chance to decide if they want to be open on Sunday or is it harder for them.”
Follow TAVA on Instagram – @thirdavenuevillage and Facebook – @ThirdAvenueVillageAssociation for additional information and updates.
