By Sean Tubbs
The fate of a proposed 300-space city-owned parking garage at Seventh and Market streets—in the space currently occupied by Lucky 7 and Guadalajara—hangs in the balance. Charlottesville City Council has to decide whether or not to include $8 million in next year’s capital budget plan for the project. The proposed garage has drawn opposition from some community members in the years since it was announced, and one city councilor who previously supported the structure has recently changed his position.
“It would be a mistake to go ahead build the parking garage at this time,” said City Councilor Lloyd Snook at council’s February 16 meeting.
Snook’s reversal is consequential—in the past, he was part of a 3-2 majority of councilors to voice informal support for the project.
A December 2018 agreement between the city and Albemarle County to locate a joint general district court downtown calls for the structure to be built. The county had explored moving its courts out of the city in part because of a perceived lack of parking.
The proposed garage would have 90 spots reserved for county court employees and visitors during regular court hours. The rest of the garage will be open to the public. The agreement doesn’t specify whether the public spots will be free or paid but says details would be worked out during the design process.
The agreement also required Albemarle to convey to the city its share of a jointly-owned surface lot between Seventh and Eighth Street NE that the two localities jointly purchased in 2005. That occurred last April and cleared the way for the city to proceed with a plan for a structure that would use both the surface lot and an adjoining property the city purchased in January 2017 for $2.85 million.
The agreement states construction of the garage must begin by May 1, 2022, and must be available for county use by November 30, 2023. If this does not occur, the county would have the temporary alternative of being guaranteed 100 spaces in the existing Market Street garage. The start date deadline is approaching fast.
If the city fails to construct the new garage, Albemarle has two options. It can either have those 100 spaces permanently dedicated to the county’s use when courts are open, or have the right to repurchase its share of the surface lot for exclusive use.
Albemarle is aware of the city’s ongoing discussion.
“The courts agreement signed by the city and county in December 2018 included several alternatives to meet the county’s articulated need for convenient parking for courts users,” says Emily Kilroy, the county’s communications director. “The agreement will be satisfied through any of those alternatives, at the option of the county.”
I think it’s absolutely worth trying to evaluate if COVID has changed the parking situation more permanently
City Councilor Michael Payne
Soon after taking over as city manager, Chip Boyles met with county officials on the subject.
“The bottom line is that they did say that they’re just looking for those 90 to 100 spaces that are identified in the agreement,” Boyles says, adding the courts project is on schedule. “We know we have to accommodate that.”
Opponents of the project have urged council to abandon the project or at least delay capital funding for one year, given concerns about the city’s ability to afford taking on more debt.
Council did not make a final decision about the garage on February 16. The current fiscal year budget includes $2 million for the project, and city staff are currently sifting through responses to a request for firms to demonstrate their qualifications to design and build the structure.
“If we are going to continue this process, we will need the additional programmed $8 million in fiscal year 22 approved by council,” says city Parking Manager Rick Siebert says. “If council doesn’t approve those funds, we are going to be unable to proceed with a contract for a design-build entity.”
Siebert says if the county chooses the guaranteed spaces in the Market Street Parking Garage, the city would lose the use of the ground floor and most of the first level.
“As a parking professional, I am unaware of any way to allow the public to use the remainder of the garage and yet effectively prohibit them from parking in the first 100 spaces of the garage that they would have to drive through to get to the remaining 377 spaces,” Siebert says.
Siebert says one remedy would possibly be to halt hourly parking by the general public during the day. Later in the day, Boyles told council another could be to delay or reduce the $8 million while further study is conducted.
Councilor Michael Payne says he would like to see the city abandon the garage but still find a way to provide the county with the spaces allotted in the agreement.
“I think it’s absolutely worth trying to evaluate if COVID has changed the parking situation more permanently, how many of these office spaces that have come online will now remain unutilized,” Payne says.
“There are a number of other parking spaces within the downtown area that are going away because of construction projects,” Boyles says. “The other thing we would want to take a look at are what kinds of transit possibilities may help fulfill some of those needs as well.”
The public hearing for the city’s budget, including the capital improvement program, is March 15. The budget will be presented to council next Monday. Council will approve the budget by April 15.
Updated 2/25. The 90 required parking spots would be for county court visitors too, not only employees.