REDMOND – With the city only months from breaking ground on the long-awaited relocation of Highway 97, some merchants along Southwest Fifth and Southwest Sixth streets are wondering whether their businesses can survive the construction process and reap the rewards of a quieter, pedestrian-friendly downtown.

Big trucks barreling through downtown Redmond make crossing the street a harrowing experience, and cars choke the intersections at both ends of downtown – but some merchants argue that the traffic has an upside, too. A lot of those cars carry tourists who are drawn into the corridor’s antique stores and restaurants.

”There are a lot of business owners and citizens that believe – and probably rightly so – that we will lose a lot of tourist dollars from the reroute,” said Ross J. O’Shei, owner of the Redmond Smoke Shop on Southwest Sixth Street. ”Tourists that drive right through the center of town are more likely to stop if they see your store.”

The $62 million rerouting project, scheduled to begin in October, will move traffic on a new road east of downtown – parallel to the existing north-south state Highway 97 running through downtown Redmond.

The planned route includes traffic signals where cars will be able to enter and exit downtown.

But business owners fear that tourists no longer forced through the center of town will simply whiz on by.

Ric Nowak, a city councilman and downtown Redmond business owner, said in an interview on Thursday that the plan will keep businesses afloat during and after the transition.

”As people are approaching the community from either direction, they’ll know they can go into town and get a meal and visit and shop – or if they like, they can skirt downtown and go about their business.”

Proponents of the new highway say that thinning out downtown traffic is the first step in making downtown Redmond a vibrant dining and shopping destination.

An average of 25,000 vehicles currently pass through the center of Redmond every day, according to the Oregon Department Of Transportation (ODOT). While some business owners are afraid of losing tourist dollars that accompany that traffic, others are ready and eager for a change.

”I think it’s long overdue, and I think they need to get it going and stop talking about it,” said Linda Bass, owner of Linda’s Book Exchange, a used paperback store on Sixth Street.

”The traffic is terrible,” she said, pointing out her front window to the cars and trucks going by.

Although Redmond’s population is on a fast track, its economy is seen by many business people as still feeling the downturn of recent years.

”Quite frankly, the mom and pop type businesses down here are fragile,” said Jude Anders-Gilbert, owner of Gilbert House, an antique and collectibles shop. ”It wouldn’t take much to put them over the edge. A two-week bad period is almost enough to do it to some of them.”

Another point of contention for downtown business owners, some say, turns on Redmond officials utilizing too much of the city’s urban renewal fund for the highway, thus short-changing projects like those focusing on building new retail outlets.

The downtown desperately needs more retail-type investments if it’s going to stay alive, said B.J. Fowler, who owns the Old Creamery Mini Mall on Southwest Sixth Street.

”No matter what, we have to get the trucks off” downtown streets, Fowler said. ”But we need to get on the stick and do some developing down there.

”You do a bypass, and you’re going to take those tourists away. If you don’t develop the downtown and give people a reason to come downtown, people are going to have a hard time making a living down there.”

Alisa Weinstein can be reached at 541-504-2336 or at aweinstein@bendbulletin.com.