Sharks Nightclub on East Congress Street has closed, making it the first business casualty attributed to construction of the modern streetcar.
"Once they closed the street down, it was a downward spiral into nothingness," said the bar's owner, Tony Dohrman. "Business was cut in half. It's just not sustainable."
The 12-year-old nightclub, which had been kept open on a week-to-week basis, was shuttered Saturday during a weekend of disappointing sales.
Dohrman laid off his 20 or so part-time workers, some of whom had been with the business as long as nine years.
Though Sharks will be gone, the space it occupied at 256 E. Congress St. will probably not be vacant long.
Sharks's landlord said he notified Dohrman earlier this year that he wanted to convert the storefront into a restaurant when the lease expires next April.
Scott Stiteler owns the Rialto block and several other storefronts on the south side of Congress, including the nightclub's address, and he has plans for turning the area into a culinary destination with as many as a half dozen new restaurants.
Don't hold your breath for the reopening of Sharks - at least not in Tucson. Dohrman said he was so disheartened with how the city planned for construction that he wouldn't open another business here. He said he would likely return to Phoenix, where he worked in the bar business for a dozen years before opening Sharks.
Dohrman's primary complaints are that the city offered no compensation or gesture of good will to businesses along the streetcar line and that the police often held the business responsible for bad behavior in the vicinity of the nightclub, which held hip-hop, karaoke and Latin rock nights.
He doesn't think the business's dwindling clientele was related to competition from newer area bars such as The Playground and Sapphire. "I think they actually helped our business because they brought more people downtown," he said.
There are consulting services available to businesses affected by transportation construction, but Dohrman didn't use them. He saw the offer as an inadequate response and said he wasn't contacted.
Most businesses in transportation corridors don't take up the offer, said Britton Dornquast, who runs the Regional Transportation Authority's MainStreet Business Assistance program.
"I'm sorry to hear that they're closing," he said, noting that representatives tried to contact Dohrman several times since 2008.
Some other business owners see the closure as a worrying sign.
The owner of The District Tavern, NoΓ«l Chester, did take up the RTA on the consulting, but found suggestions to join booster groups and to renegotiate her lease unhelpful.
A downtown worker for more than 20 years and owner of The District for more than seven, Chester now fears longtime downtown businesses like hers are being driven out.
Chester recently got notice that the block's property value has risen, and so she expects rising rent.
"We've prevented downtown from being a ghetto," she said. "Am I going to be in the same situation (as Dohrman) in 2 1/2 years (when the lease expires), walking out of here with a neon sign in my hand?"
Contact reporter Carli Brosseau at cbrosseau@azstarnet.com or 573-4197.
