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Steamboat Springs — Downtown business owners are preparing for fall construction on Lincoln Avenue with various levels of planning and optimism.

After a July and August that appeared to be positive for many Steamboat Springs businesses, and a July that saw comparatively strong citywide sales tax revenues, some local business owners are feeling trepidation about the twin specters of shoulder season and the return of the Colorado Department of Transportation’s repaving project on Lincoln Avenue through downtown. Sales and extra advertising about Yampa Street access are among the methods business owners are considering to keep customers coming and sales flowing.

Work on the $5.6 million project conducted by Scott Contracting began in fall 2009, continued in spring through June and resumes Tuesday. The final portion of the project includes work on the south, or river, side of Lincoln, from Ninth Street to Third Street.

“It’ll be very similar to what we saw in the spring,” city engineer Ben Beall said about the work’s scope in the fall.

That means crews will remove the road surface in three-block, rolling sections, moving from Ninth to Third. CDOT spokeswoman Nancy Shanks said the south side of Lincoln would be closed this week from Ninth to at least past Seventh Street, with four lanes of traffic open at Fifth Street.

Lane Anderson, owner of Awesome Shirtworks at 635 Lincoln Ave., was all too aware Thursday that much of fall’s construction will be right outside his front door.

“We’re planning on having some kind of sale throughout the whole construction,” Anderson said.

He expressed appreciation for the absence of construction from July 1 through Tuesday, a deal the city struck with CDOT and Scott Contracting to help downtown businesses during the height of summer tourism.

“It’s been a pretty good summer,” Anderson said. “You could definitely tell the difference when they pulled out” June 30.

Expressing a feeling shared by several business owners, Anderson hoped for good weather in coming weeks to help crews move through the project quickly. Wet weather in late April and May caused delays on the project in the spring.

“Once the weather got good, they banged it out pretty quickly,” Anderson said.

A block away at Seventh Street, Mel LeBlanc, owner of Urbane clothing store, said she’s talking with other businesses in the Howelsen Place building about sharing the cost of radio ads to promote access from Yampa Street.

Urbane sells clothing and accessories geared toward a younger, edgier crowd than many Steamboat stores attract.

“Luckily, a lot of my customers are on bikes and skateboards” and not constricted by blocked vehicle access, LeBlanc said.

Next door at Zirkel Trading, Denise Hitchcock agreed that “collectively, there’s been talk about working together,” and like Anderson, she looked to the skies.

“I’m hopeful that weather will cooperate, with fall colors,” she said, reasoning that another benefit of good weather would be drawing tourists to town. “We’d sure like to keep people thinking about shopping and coming downtown.”

Joe Kboudi, owner of All That Jazz, said his staff would reach out to local customers who’d prefer to avoid downtown during construction.

“We’re going to deliver music in the area,” Kboudi said. “We did that in the spring, and it was kind of fun.”

Kboudi said customers in the Old Town area can call the store, order an album and provide a credit card number and then staff will deliver the order to their home.

Kboudi said All That Jazz also is firming up ideas for promotions such as a $10 gift card with a purchase of $50 or more and sales offering 20 percent off on certain items — clothing one week, jewelry another week and so on.

Preliminary figures released last week show that Steam­boat’s sales tax collections increased 1.7 percent in July, compared with July 2009. Kim Weber, the city’s revenue supervisor, noted that July had five weekends this year, compared with four last year, which might have contributed to the increase. Weber said the city is not forecasting continued sales tax increases in the fall.

“I think we’re more expecting to see the same numbers as last year. We’re not expecting any huge jumps,” Weber said. “We’re hesitant to be too encouraged by this because we’re still down at 2005 levels” for monthly sales tax revenues.

Kboudi said September sometimes could be a “fairly decent” month with visitors for fall colors and events such as OktoberWest, a festival at the base of Steamboat Ski Area that’s scheduled for Sept. 18.

“We want people to support us as best they can,” Kboudi said. “It’s a great community, and we’re all in this together.”