If you’ve been following NPR Notes for any length of time, you’ll know that parking has been a recurring theme as the historic downtown has started to come back to life.

The availability of parking simply didn’t matter when the downtown sat mostly empty and the place looked like a ghost town.  Main Street wasn’t quite as bad as Market Street in Centerville Florida, but we were headed in that direction.

The resurgence of our historic downtown has put pressure on the available parking. While the problem is particularly acute when we have special events in the park, it is no longer unusual to discover that finding a parking place can be a challenge on any given afternoon or evening.

There is potentially a long range solution in a parking garage, but we are going to need interim solutions long before that garage holds its first cars.  Our existing city parking lots and on-street parking are stretched, particularly in the afternoons and evenings when Sims Park is full and the dinner crowds head downtown to eat at one of our many restaurants.  Toss in shows at the Richey Suncoast Theatre and Jimmy Ferraro’s Studio Theatre and things get extremely tight.

I attended the Cityworks conference in Winter Haven this past week.  The conference was held in a downtown church and the pastor, during his welcome comments, pointed out that they were an ideal downtown tenant in part because, while they fill up their parking on Sunday mornings, it is open most of the rest of the week for use by people who want to come downtown to shop or dine.  Additionally, the conference had arranged for golf cart shuttles between the city’s parking garage and the church.

There are multiple private parking lots within a few blocks of our downtown that could be used.  The Red Apple School, the First United Methodist Church, and the Community Congregational Church all have decent sized parking lots that sit empty most of the time.   Would any of them be interested in leasing parking space to the city?  I don’t know, but it might be worth asking them.  Both Community Congregational and First Methodist allow you to park, for a fee,  in their lots on parade days now.

If some enterprising individual started running a parking circuit with an NEV, you wouldn’t even have to walk.  That would solve the parking issue for some of the folks who are trying to get to one of the theatres or other downtown establishments.

If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll notice the Level 1 charging station at First Methodist is in use.  As I wrote about a few weeks ago, I believe the city should be incorporating charging stations  in city lots around town.  Cars that can take advantage of them are becoming more common by the day.

With the recently passed golf cart ordinance, we could make more space simply by marking a few existing spaces as reserved for vehicles short enough to fit in them sideways.  Other spots that are too short for a regular car would be perfect for golf cart / NEV parking.

As you can see from the photo on the left, a micro-car and a GEM NEV are sharing a single parking space with plenty of room for three more.  That is five cars worth of people visiting the museum or the park in a space designed for a single car.

With a little creative thinking we can create extra spaces around town for nothing more than the cost of a few signs and some paint.  We could go all out with Level 1 charging stations like the one at First Methodist for a modest investment and probably only a few dollars worth of electricity each month.  Then the NEV owners could have their vehicles’ batteries topped off while they are having dinner downtown, visiting the museum, or enjoying our park.

There are streets around town where either parallel or angle parking would be easy to establish.  We’re talking dozens of spaces for the cost of some paint.  All of these potential spaces are within just a few blocks of the downtown.

None of this is rocket science, simply a little thinking outside of the box.

Rob Marlowe, Mayor