Odd things happen when a bridge gets built.

In the opening weeks of intense work on the west side of The Narrows, trees have fallen, roads are closed and exits are barricaded. It’s a change.

With everything going on, the remaining nearby businesses have been apprehensive about the future landscape of commerce in which they will exist.
So far, so good. Odd.

The Performance Golf Center sits just on the lip of the work now underway to build a parallel Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Counter-intuitively and despite all worries, the number of people teeing up has increased over the same time last year. That has included a small increase from construction workers in for food.

“Part of the reason for a less than expected drop in business, perhaps, is that we sent out fliers and maps,” said Performance Golf general manager Dana Smith. “And there was a false start where they said they’d be closing off the ramp. They didn’t and so we got ahead.

“It’s an odd thing. We’ve had more business so we feel pretty good.”

So far, the work done Tacoma Narrows Constructors has transformed the landscape. As well as foundation work on the water, both sides of the road near the current bridge have been cleared of trees. Commuters have had to find new ways to get onto State Route 16, which has meant extraordinary back-ups at the Olympic Drive entrance in the morning.

“We thought we were visible enough with the nets and the poles and the bright lights,” Smith said, “but, surprisingly enough since some of the trees have gone down we’ve had people say they didn’t know we existed or that we were a soccer field or something.”

It’s not as if any of this happened overnight. A second bridge has been an idea for decades. It has been an almost certainty for the last 10 years. The Gig Harbor Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce has long prepared its members and business in general for what might happen. It’s been a matter talked over through and through. The overarching theory has been that it’s long overdue and will help generate new dollars.

The long-term effect of initial $3 bridge tolls is also a source of some apprehension for business around the entire south Olympic peninsula region.

“We’ve been told it’s a 60-month project,” Smith said. “There’s no question when the tolls start that we will suffer a loss of business. What we anticipate is the population on this side of the bridge will increase and that will be enough to offset the other.”

Odder things have happened.