Cape looks to sharing agreements to help Broadway parking

Broadway business owners are still worried about a loss of parking spaces due to the ongoing revamp of the downtown corridor, but city officials hope that sharing agreements in the works will lessen the project's effects.

The city is finalizing a shared space agreement with Trinity Lutheran Church that would provide up to 60 parking spaces available for public use on the south side of Broadway, where a church-owned building was demolished in December. The city council has already given its approval to the agreement, according to city manager Scott Meyer, and the city expects the church to sign the agreement soon. A lot would need to be constructed at the location.

Construction of a 15-foot-wide "promenade" sidewalk meant 64 parking spaces on the north side of Broadway in the areas from Water to Pacific streets had to be eliminated. Parking space on the south side of the street is also reduced somewhat because of the design of the project, which features large rounded curbs containing decorative brick.

Earlier in the year, some business owners approached the city with questions about how the situation could be remedied, and questioned the lack of a plan to replace the parking spaces, which they said are needed for customer and employee access. Also mentioned was the effect a lack of parking could have for developers who would consider buying real estate along Broadway for new businesses and converting rundown buildings into rehabilitated downtown living space.

Dru Reeves, owner of Horizon Screen Printing, said an agreement between the church and the city may address the lack of parking near his business, but it won't help other areas of Broadway.

Reeves is among business and property owners who say a plan for replacing and even expanding parking in anticipation of additional visitors from the opening of the Isle of Capri casino should have been in place before the project began.

"Why in the world you would say, 'Let's bring in all these visitors and at the same time eliminate parking'? I don't know," said Bob Bohnsack, who owns five buildings on Broadway. "There should have been prior plans. It just seems misguided to me."

Bohnsack said he owns enough parking space behind his buildings to satisfy the needs of his tenants now but worries that when the project is complete that the public will try to use the lot. He said that if more businesses open nearby and don't have adequate parking space, the situation could become worse. Some other property owners who want to develop their buildings into a mix of retail and residential space question how to do that without violating city codes, which say apartment units must be accompanied by parking.

City engineer Casey Brunke said six locations in addition to the space owned by Trinity Lutheran Church have been identified as potential for more sharing agreements for public parking. City staff has already begun talking with some of the owners, she said.

Meyer said the city's current plan to replace the lost parking is to try to form agreements with property owners for what the city deems "first-tier parking," or parking that would be within one block of Broadway. The city has declined to release the identities of those property owners.

The property owners the city is working with are unique, Meyer said, in that some may be willing to share with the public and some will but would like to have something in return, such as signage to designate the difference in private and public parking. Plans for helping the parking situation along Broadway will also include the installation of signs leading to public parking when the city secures those locations, Meyer said, and the city will look at forming more agreements with property owners who own lots more than one block from Broadway as well.

"Anything in the first tier would be within a block of Broadway, so we feel like that's a good replacement," he said.

Several businesses in the 500 and 600 blocks of Broadway have roped off parking areas recently or posted signs that indicate parking is only for customer, resident or employee use.

Brunke said she hopes once sharing agreements are in place that the areas near Broadway will actually offer more parking space for downtown than in the past.

A recent survey of Cape Girardeau businesses and residents conducted by the National Research Center at the request of city officials showed 80 percent of business people surveyed rated the amount of public parking downtown as fair or poor, and that businesses and citizens rated rundown buildings, vacant buildings and abandoned properties among the five issues in the city most in need of attention or most problematic.

Another concern for business owners, including Reeves, is the width of the bricked area designated for parking on the south side of Broadway. Reeves contacted city staff over the summer to notify them that larger vehicles, such as trucks and SUVs, did not fit into the bricked space, which was perceived as an issue because the vehicles appeared to extend too far into the driving lanes. Brunke said the parking area was built to specifications, and that only seven feet of the eight-foot-wide space was bricked on purpose.

"There is actually another foot beyond the pavers that are for parking," Brunke said. "It's deceiving to the eye."

The last foot was not bricked so that the bricks in the parking lane would match the widths of bricked areas at intersections, she said.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO