The Escanaba DDA chair is Sue Parker. She also owns Nyman Jewelers on Ludington Street. This summer, Ludington Street gets a $19 million reconstruction. Parker's business has no back door.

The Ludington Street corridor reconstruction is scheduled for summer 2026. It is ARPA-funded at $19 million. The Escanaba DDA is contributing a $300,000 city match and $500,000 in construction costs. The project has been planned for years. It is necessary. It will also be brutal for the businesses on the street for the duration.

Parker is explicit about what this means for her business: "This is going to affect a lot of businesses downtown. But this is something that has to be done." Nyman Jewelers has no back door — there is no way to access the store without going through the construction zone. The impact is direct, unavoidable, and quantifiable.

The DDA has scheduled a construction communication meeting for April 15 — before construction begins — to walk merchants through what to expect, what accommodations the contractor is required to maintain (pedestrian access, business signage visibility, delivery windows), and what resources are available during construction.

The governance story here is about what it looks like when the district's leadership is honest about impact rather than defensive about disruption. Parker did not minimize the construction's effect on her business or the corridor. She named it and framed it accurately: this is something that has to be done. That framing — honest about impact, clear about necessity, already working on adaptation — is the model. Merchants reading this should ask whether their DDA or BID is communicating with the same clarity about construction projects in their corridors.