Sharpsburg businesses prepare for extra traffic during Highland Park Bridge ramp closure on Route 28

On Monday, PennDOT crews closed the ramp from northbound Route 28 to the Highland Park Bridge in Sharpsburg to begin a construction project expected to last about three months.

As construction workers posted signs warning of closures and detours, Bonnie Demotte scouted spots to put up signs of her own. Demotte, who serves as executive director of Second Harvest Community Thrift Store in Sharpsburg, said she drove down Main Street on Monday morning looking for places to post signs encouraging drivers following the detour to stop by the store.

During the monthslong construction project — which involves replacing expansion dams and bearings, repairing concrete and steel, blasting and painting, improving drainage and applying an epoxy overlay on the deck — drivers will be streaming into Sharpsburg, following a posted detour that takes them along Main Street.

“It’s bringing a whole new market into Sharpsburg,” Demotte said. “I think it’s a great thing. I’m sure it’ll cause some frustrations, but there’s always a silver lining.”

Looking to capitalize on that silver lining, Demotte said she is hoping to advertise the thrift shop — which is on Clay Street, a block back from Main Street at Eighth Street. She wants to attract customers who wouldn’t likely cruise by if not for the detour.

“There’s a lot of great hidden gems in Sharpsburg,” she said. “More people coming through will highlight those. We’re excited about it. I think all of Sharpsburg could really capitalize on it.”

Second Harvest Community Thrift Store opened about three months ago.

“I think, overwhelmingly, it’ll just bring new eyes to the area,” Demotte said, adding that, because they’re a block back from the detour and have their own parking lot, she isn’t worried about potential negative impacts of the extra traffic.

But the influx of traffic is a concern for Serkan Inan, a manager at Gino Bros. Pizzeria and Bar on Main Street between Seventh and Eighth streets.

“I think it will be a traffic jam for us,” Inan said. “It’s probably going to back up.”

He said he is concerned the influx of traffic will translate to pizza delivery drivers stuck in backups and longer wait times for customers.

“We might be late because of traffic issues,” he said. “We’ll be warning customers.”

Inan said they don’t have too many customers across the Highland Park Bridge, but he still is concerned traffic within Sharpsburg will be problematic for delivery drivers. Nonetheless, he said, he doesn’t anticipate it to be a major issue that would result in lost business.

“I don’t think it’s a big problem,” he said. “They’ll just have to wait a little bit more for their deliveries.”

At Dancing Gnome Beer on Main Street, Mike Dunlay, the operations manager, said he sees pros and cons to having more people commute past their location.

He recalled the last time a detour drove more people through town.

“It was good because people passed here, but it also kept some of our regular customers away,” he said, anticipating the same with this detour. “We saw some people would make it part of their trip. They would be like, ‘I know I have to sit in traffic for a bit, so I might as well stop and have a beer.’ ”

Dunlay said there has been “a lot of buzz” about the closure and detour in town recently. As he drove through Sharpsburg on Monday morning, he saw police monitoring traffic in a few spots in town.

“I think they’re prepared for it,” he said. “We’re not nervous about it. We just take it as it is.”