AGAWAM, MA (WGGB/WSHM) - Agawam business owners raised concerns over a road project, they say, could cost them customers. The family behind Pajer Superette urged the public to speak up at a town meeting later this month.

The Pajer family told us this project is about more than just concrete and curbs. They say losing about a third of their parking also means losing customers, and they’re asking the town to reconsider before construction moves forward.

A road project meant to fix one of Agawam’s intersections, putting a longtime neighborhood business on edge. The Pajer family, owners of Pajer Superette on Cooper Street, said the town’s plans for new curbs, sidewalks, and crosswalk upgrades could take about a third of their parking lot. They’re worried that could take away the quick in-and-out access their customers rely on, “the young crowd that comes in they want to run in and run out they’re not going to run around the block looking for parking spots,” said Fred Pajer.

Pajer said they’ve met with town leaders and engineers trying to minimize the impact but so far, they say the design still takes too much space, “we went and talked to the mayor and engineering, and we were trying to shrink it but they are kind of stuck on what they want to do and its really hard for us to lose all of this parking. If you take away 4 parking spots and they get turned over ten times a day, that’s 40 customers we could lose.”

But Mayor Christopher Johnson said the town’s goal is improving safety and traffic flow at an intersection, he said is outdated and close to failing, “right now the intersection doesn’t operate too efficiently because we lack this turn lane on north bound route 75 on Suffield street beyond that all the traffic signals in this intersection are around 70 to 80 years old they are on the brink on failure.”

The mayor said the town also has a deadline. He said Agawam needs to commit casino mitigation money by July 1st to secure about $1 million dollars in state funding. Mayor Johnson insists they’ve made the impacts as small as possible.

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