Printed on: Friday, July 30, 2010
Downtown deadline
Officials hope for parking plan in August
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By CLARK CORBIN
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Tom Hally doesn't like watching paint dry, won't lose sleep waiting for the next appearance of Halley's comet and thinks two decades is long enough to consider Memorial Drive renovations.
The Idaho Falls City Council member, who also sits on the Idaho Falls Redevelopment Agency board, hopes the council will approve a memorandum of understanding regarding parking during an Aug. 12 session.
The proposal, which has not been finalized, calls for creating as many as 200 new parking spaces downtown. The spaces would be inside a four-block area of downtown between Constitution Way, Park Avenue, E Street and Memorial Drive, said Renee Magee, executive director of the RDA.
"This (debate) has been going on for years," Hally said. "We've had public input and consultants brought in. Eventually, we have got to make a choice, and that's where we are at."
The parking proposal would allow city leaders to proceed with a plan to reconfigure Memorial and extend a section of the grassy greenbelt closer to the downtown district. The reconfiguration would eliminate many of the nearly 200 free parking places presently situated in the middle of Memorial.
"Our concern is making sure there is enough long-term parking within reasonable distances for employees, jurors and the people who spend more than a couple hours in the courthouse," County Commissioner Roger Christensen said. "(County officials) feel pretty good about the plan we're talking about now."
In addition to the new spots near Park Avenue, plans call for redoing the courthouse parking lot, closing Legion Drive and converting the land underneath a nearby former law office into larger parking areas, Christensen said.
Magee and Christensen also said city and county leaders hope to place as many as 20 new spots in the middle of Constitution and remove the two-hour time restrictions on spaces near the courthouse.
Magee and RDA board member Lee Radford said officials are negotiating purchase agreements with downtown landowners to buy space for the new lots. Magee said RDA officials have set aside $1 million for parking projects but contracts have not been finalized.
RDA officials set aside an additional $1.6 million for greenbelt improvements.
Magee hopes city, county and RDA leaders can all sign off on the proposal by Aug. 15, which would allow RDA officials to sign purchase agreements.
She also said any action approved next month would likely be followed by future efforts to secure additional downtown parking. Magee said neither parking meters nor a parking garage is part of the current plan.
"Our research told us we're not ready for a parking structure because we have free parking," Magee said. "The cost of building a structure could be $30,000 per space, plus maintenance. Until we are ready to pay for parking, a parking structure does not look financially feasible."
Hally likes the parking proposal and said it could lead to a greenbelt expansion and additional riverfront development.
"It will tie the city to the greenbelt and make our use of the river that much nicer," Hally said.
Business reporter Clark Corbin can be reached at 542-6761. Comment on this story at Post Talk at www.postregister.com/posttalk.
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