City Council agrees to sell lot to Clasen-Jordan

Published 6:26 pm Tuesday, February 8, 2022

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The Austin City Council on Monday night agreed to the selling of a parking lot to Clasen-Jordan Mortuary.

The .37 acre lot in question is south of the First United Methodist Church in downtown Austin and is valued at $58,000.

Clasen-Jordan came to the city with the request to buy the property, but there were some concerns in terms of parking capacity and parking enforcement.

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AHS students make use of the lot during school hours, however, it was determined that adequate parking remains, on top of the lot still being available on days Clasen-Jordan doesn’t have services.

“I talked to Mr. Clasen before the meeting,” said Councilman Jeff Austin. “The lot will be open during the day when they don’t have a service at the mortuary. That would be open to the high school kids to use still … most services probably wouldn’t be during school hours.”

Councilman Paul Fischer agreed saying, “There’s plenty of parking around the school. I don’t see a problem with Clasen wanting to purchase that and I don’t see a problem with parking.”

The agreement, requiring at least a two-thirds majority, passed unanimously.

In other news:

• The council also agreed unanimously to eliminate parking on the south side of 13th Avenue NW, next to Subway, turning the space into a left-hand turning lane to allow for easier mergers onto Fourth Street NW.

• The City Council gave the go-ahead on allocating $20,000 in contingency funds toward weight room work for both Austin police and firefighters. The money will be split evenly between the two sites.

• Using a combination of funding options at the local, state and federal levels, the city council approved a pair of measures to improve airport infrastructure, specifically taxiway joint repair and taxilane design. The total work will come to an estimated $2 million dollars, but the city will only flip the bill for $125,000, with the rest coming from state and federal sources.