BIDDEFORD, Maine — It’s been several years that city officials have considered constructing a parking structure in the city center as a way to encourage further development in the downtown and adjacent mill district. The process has proceeded in fits and starts. However, from discussions that have taken place in recent months, it looks like 2018 will be the year the construction of a parking garage with spaces for over 400 vehicles will begin.
The Biddeford City Council must decide soon on whether to give the go-ahead to the project if they hope to begin construction sometime this year and complete it by November 2019.
The council, rather than residents, will be making the decision on whether to build a city-owned parking structure.
Biddeford City Manager James Bennett stressed on Tuesday during a City Council workshop on the issue that the cost of the garage will paid for by parking revenues, not by property taxpayers.
People may think that city-owned parking is free currently, but that is not the case, he said, as the general fund is used to maintain street parking and parking at city-owned lots.
“What we’re trying to be able to do is shift the cost of parking in the community away from the property taxpayers and onto the people that use the public parking and potentially create a market for private sector to invest in parking,” Bennett said.
“Most people inherently don’t think that when you have ‘free’ parking where the money comes from,” he said. For those paying property taxes, “You’re paying for someone to have that opportunity to have free parking in the downtown.”
To those who think private developers should build a parking garage rather than the city, Bennett said when Portland started building garages it was only that city’s government doing so. Today, he said, most garages in Maine’s largest city are owned by the private sector, something which could eventually take place in Biddeford if the city’s parking strategy makes it worthwhile for the private sector to get in the parking garage business.
According to the aggressive timeline outlined by Chief Operating Officer Brian Phinney on Tuesday, the council would choose a site for the facility on Feb. 6, the final design would be submitted on Sept. 12, and awarding the construction bid would take place Nov. 6, with construction to begin around that time. The goal is to complete the structure by Nov. 6, 2019.
While Phinney’s proposal is only an initial draft, significant ground work has already taken place.
In December, representatives Desman Design Management gave a presentation to the council in which it identified three potential sites for a parking structure; these included the city-owned parking lot on Washington and Federal streets, an area on the former Maine Energy Recovery Company waste-to-energy incinerator at the intersection of Lincoln and Pearl streets and the Pepperell Mill campus. The first site is located in the city’s downtown, the latter two are in the mill district.
In rating the three sites, the Maine Energy site came out on top — although no decision on a site has been made.
Drawbacks to the city-owned downtown lot include that its small size requires building a seven-story story structure to obtain the number of desired spaces, it would be more expensive and there would be no room to expand.
Concerns with the Pepperell Mill campus site include the it is not owned by the city — and the site’s owners don’t want to sell it to the city, Bennett said — and there are underground structural issues resulting from the former textile mills that were located there.
Although Desman rates the former Maine Energy site the highest, a concern is that location is not as accessible to the downtown as the other two sites so pedestrian easements or other types of people moving methods would be needed.
Bennett said he thinks a parking garage in Biddeford would be successful.
“We believe if a garage was on the face of the earth in our downtown today we would have 200 to potentially 275 of the 400 spots potentially rented on a monthly basis,” he said.
While there may be enough parking spots for existing visitors to the downtown and mill district, Economic and Community Development Director Mathew Eddy said “We know that lack of parking that we have is really a limit to what we can do in terms of development and redevelopment.” By adding more parking more business and more jobs could be created in Biddeford.
Eddy has been tasked with creating a parking management program, of which a parking structure would be only one part.
According to a draft of the plan he presented to the council on Tuesday, two-hour free street parking in the downtown would be eliminated and replaced with one-hour free parking as well as some 15-minute parking spots for quick transactions. City-owned surface lots which are currently no charge would have a fee. Other aspects of the plan deal with improvements to parking areas, marketing and increased enforcement.
“The first (parking garage) is always the most difficult,” said Mayor Alan Casavant, a proponent of a city-owned parking structure. Once people view a parking structure like other types of infrastructure, like sewers, roads, and people see the benefits, “Then you get it.”
Another City Council workshop on the issue dealing with financing a parking structure will take place Jan. 30.
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