ROCKFORD, Mich. — Residents and visitors alike have been enjoying drinking and eating outdoors on a blocked-off Main Street in Rockford for months. The Rockford Outdoor Refreshment Area (RORA) was introduced around the holidays last year, as a way to draw in business during the pandemic.
This week, the barricades will be removed and Main Street will once again be open to traffic.
"If you just don’t try, you just don’t know," said Mayor Ed Ross. "There were a lot of questions going into this: Is this going to become a big party area? What’s going to happen when this gets more popular? And what we found was people simply enjoyed it."
However, as summer is in full swing, the novelty has worn off, and indoor dining is once again reopen at restaurants, city officials said it was time to remove the area for now.
Tables, fireplaces and other structures will be removed beginning Wednesday. The road will be reopen to traffic on Friday.
However, visitors can still bring food and drinks outside of restaurants through the end of the year. The RORA perimeter still exists, but the goal is visitors would enjoy those beverages at a park inside the area, the pavilion or somewhere else along downtown.
"We had one business that shortly after RORA opened, it had more sales on a Friday than it had all last October," said Ross. "And they were considering leaving our community. They're still here."
Other businesses reaped the benefits of additional foot traffic due to RORA these past few months.
"We got very busy in December when it opened," said Sienna Wight, manager of Sweetland Chocolates and Coffee. "People weren’t able to sit inside for so long, and we still weren’t open to people sitting in, so it was really nice for people to hang out with people, and still get stuff from a business and sit outside on a table instead of just taking it home."
Wight said parking was a challenge for some customers while the road was closed. She believes many will be excited for the street to reopen. Although, unlike their chocolates, she believes this week is bittersweet.
"I think it’ll be really weird at first," said Wight. "People will like to have the spots back, but I do think it’ll be missed because it was really good for a long time."
However, this will not be the end of the RORA area downtown. Thad Beard, Rockford's city manager, said they plan to bring it back sometime later this fall and winter for the holidays once again.
"Not every business benefits from this," said Beard. "However, the businesses that don’t personally benefit from it have been appreciative of it too because they know their neighbors have benefited from it."
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