Businesses continue to recover one year later after Main Street Commons crash
GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV) – Fifteen months later and several current and former tenants are rebuilding their businesses after a car crashed into the Main Street Commons in Green Bay causing heavy damage to the building.
A Brown County judge sentenced the driver Merissa Reed to one year in jail and four years of probation on Tuesday.
“The part of the building where we had all of our manufacturing and office space was completely collapsed,” said Ashley Prange who is the owner of Au Natural Cosmetics. “Over $5 million worth of inventory and products. It was really devastating because for over a decade I’ve been building this business and everything we need to create the 180 products we make was in that building.”
Prange said she built up the business for over a decade and seeing it destroyed in the crash was devastating for her.
“We had so many customers reaching out and begging us to restart again,” she said. “So in my mind, we couldn’t just take away products that they depended on.”
She said although there’s still work to be done to get the business back to where it was prior to the crash, they are making great progress.
After spending some time operating out of De Pere, she said they have a new location now in the Titletown District.
The Main Salon and Spa was another business in the Main Street Commons building impacted by the crash and partial building collapse. Owner Betz Castro Rodriguez said they lost about a third of his business space and had to close for over two months after the crash.
“I’m not going to lie, it did cross my mind to simply just close the doors,” he said. “My team, my employees were the ones that encouraged me and said that they want to continue.”
Castro Rodriguez has rebuilt his business slowly in the same space that it was prior to the crash. They had to get repairs on some of the walls and windows that were damaged and had to slowly reintroduce some of their services.
“I’m very grateful, grateful that people still consider the Main salon a place they can receive some fantastic services,” he said. “I feel great about how we’ve been able to bounce back.”
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Both business owners said they would have liked to see Reid show more remorse for her actions. She did speak during her sentencing hearing, apologizing for previous Facebook posts she had made where she questioned why anybody had cared about the building she had crashed into.
“I do hope that she can get back on her feet after this, I still care about her,” said Prange about Reed. “I just wish that there was more of a remorseful care or even a note or something an apology that was sincere.”
“I hope that she has learned her lesson and that she can make some changes in her life to prevent something like this from happening again,” said Castro Rodriguez.
A section of the building had to be torn down after the crash. That part hasn’t been rebuilt, instead, it’s a small plaza with some picnic tables.
Reed will be in court next month for a hearing to discuss restitution for the victims of the crash.
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