There won’t be a new parking lot in downtown Austin just for Mower County employees.

Thursday, November 16, 2000

There won’t be a new parking lot in downtown Austin just for Mower County employees.

However, they may get extended parking privileges in an existing downtown lot.

The Austin City Council’s public works committee met Wednesday afternoon with Mower County Commissioners Ray Tucker and Dave Hillier.

Tucker, Second District, is chairman of the county board, and Hillier represents the Third District.

Mickey Jorgenson, First Ward council member, is chairwoman of the committee. The only other committee member present was Jeanne Poppe, Second Ward council member.

Jon W. Erichson, city engineer and director of public works, also participated in the discussion.

One of the driving forces behind seeking more parking for county employees is simple: "Unfortunately, people don’t want to walk very far to park their cars," Tucker said.

The history of the situation is this: In order to build its second phase of upscale apartments, the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority needed a small parcel of county-owned property at the corner of First Avenue NE and Third Street NE, where the driver’s license exam building was located.

The building also was used by the Austin Police Department to store seized property and the ground around it was a popular parking lot for county employees at the Government Center in downtown Austin.

Negotiations began between city and county officials. County officials attempted to hold on to the property, which allowed the public a easily accessible location to take care of driver’s license needs and provided parking for county employees.

The city said it desperately needed the property to build an apartment complex similar to the giant Courtyard Apartments between Second and First avenues NE. At one point, a land swap was offered the county, which would include condemned bar property in downtown Austin to become a parking lot.

The deal that was finally struck between the city and the county involved the city’s purchase of the driver’s license exam station property at less than the appraised value.

The driver’s license exam station moved into Gary Groh’s remodeled Milwaukee Road depot building and Chauncey Apartments is now under construction where the county once owned the property.

For county Government Center employees, the problem that plagued them hasn’t gone away: they cannot park as close to their place of employment as desired. Other existing downtown lots fill up quickly. Parking on the streets around the Government Center runs the risk of overtime parking tickets. Moving their vehicles every two hours is an annoyance and disrupts their work for county government.

Erichson observed, "It’s actually great to have a parking problem in downtown Austin, because it shows how much people use the downtown."

Tucker and Hillier said they have read a letter from Craig Hoium, the city’s planning and zoning administrator, detailing the city’s availability of existing lots in downtown Austin, but no plans for another.

A week ago, the subject was briefly discussed at a joint city-county meeting. That set the stage for Wednesday’s confrontation.

"There were several things going on at the same time," Tucker said of the city-county discussions over a land swap two years ago. "There was never anything set in concrete, but county employees have brought it to the attention of the county commissioners, reminding us what the city people said they would do."

According to Tucker, when the Government Center was remodeled, expanded parking was created for all in the parking lot serving the Government Center and Law Enforcement Center.

Parking in the existing downtown lots is on a "first-come, first-serve" basis, according to Tucker, and quickly taken up by downtown Austin retail employees or (the so-called First United Methodist Church parking lot) students at Austin High School.

Erichson said the city has attempted to address downtown parking needs, including designating some lots for extended parking and has a new parking lot behind the Thirsty’s Bar along Third Avenue NE for the public’s use. Also parking permits are sold for the Methodist Church lot and the lot where the former Austin Public Library stood will return to public parking from Hormel Foods Corp. when it terminates its lease for the spaces soon.

A solution emerged to allow the county employees permit-parking along the east side of the parking lot facing First Street NE and the Brown Derby bar.

"One-third would become four-hour spaces along First Street," Erichson said.

With no other option surfacing, Tucker and Hillier said they would take the recommendation back to the entire county board for consideration.

Jorgenson, noting the absence of Gloria Nordin, Third Ward council member, from the committee meeting, said the proposal would have to be studied further.

Also, Jorgenson and Poppe each said the downtown merchants would have to be contacted for their input.

When parking concerns surface in the central business district, invariably it becomes as much an issue to provide parking for employees of stores as it does for shoppers.

Hillier said the change could be on a trial basis before being permanent implemented in order to satisfy business owners and their employees and everybody else.

Erichson said the approaching year-end holidays could preclude making the change to extended parking hours for county employees before January.

The committee members and Erichson said they would keep the county apprised of any developments.