BUSINESS OWNERS: Parking Prompts Reactions

SUPPORT, UNEASINESS SURROUND PAID PLAN SET FOR READING TODAY

Automobiles fill the parking lot west of the Walton Arts Center on Thursday on West Dickson Street in Fayetteville. The City Council is considering ordinances that would transition this lot and others around the Walton Arts Center to paid parking. The lot at West Avenue and Dickson Street would be available on a pay-as-you-stay basis as well as part of a Walton Arts Center parking reservation program.
Automobiles fill the parking lot west of the Walton Arts Center on Thursday on West Dickson Street in Fayetteville. The City Council is considering ordinances that would transition this lot and others around the Walton Arts Center to paid parking. The lot at West Avenue and Dickson Street would be available on a pay-as-you-stay basis as well as part of a Walton Arts Center parking reservation program.

— Travis Feltner worries that a 50-cent parking charge could be enough to keep some customers out of his hot dog and hamburger restaurant in near Dickson Street.

Hair stylists at the Green Papaya salon next door are considering paying their clients’ parking charges out of their own pockets, hoping to keep them from defecting to other salons with less complicated parking.

And about a block away, at the Green Room pool hall, bartender Tad Sours says the American Pool Players Association tournament, held this past Saturday at the Green Room, will be the last.

“Because when you have people playing for 10 hours, they don’t want to pay to park,” said Sours, 29.

What is worrying some business operators around Dickson Street — and infuriating others — is a plan by the city. The plan will transform the almost 1,000 parking spaces around what’s come to be known as the entertainment district to either pay spots or free spaces that are only available to registered residents in the area.

Years In The Making

Some sort of paid parking plan has been talked about for years, but the 2010 effort has been evolving for months after more than a dozen public meetings. The Fayetteville City Council is set to review the proposal again today for its third and final reading. The council may make a decision tonight.

Ultimately, the goal of the paid parking plan is to raise money to fund the construction of a parking deck to alleviate what is generally regarded as a shortage of parking spaces for the district. A key part of the plan is also to give the Walton Arts Center more direct control over spaces near its performance hall. The arts center’s leadership has devoted much time and effort to backing the city administration’s plan because parking is a major irritant for arts center patrons.

What is not in short supply is a general uneasiness among patrons and business operators about what to expect when the city installs about 20 pay stations on sidewalks and in parking lots around Dickson Street. The three lots around the Walton Arts Center will become pay-as-you-stay gated lots.

“I understand why there needs to be paid parking,” Feltner said. “But, to a certain extent, that is what has made Dickson Street Dickson Street — the accessibility and just the kind of free atmosphere of it. Come down here, find a parking spot and walk to where ever you want to go.”

“I’m not against the whole change,” said Ryan Epp, owner of Green Papaya. “I’m not against the city trying to do something. I do agree, something has to be done.”

Lex Broyles, owner of the Wine Cellar at the end of Spring Street, said paid parking is not ideal and he hopes the pricing is fair. He agreed, however, with Mayor Lioneld Jordan that doing something to address the parking challenges is better than doing nothing.

Feltner, Epp and others agree that nighttime parking in the area could use some form of management. Paid parking — if revenue is dedicated to construction of a parking garage — could be the way to do it.

Julie Sill, owner of Common Grounds and Hog Haus Brewing Co., and a supporter of the city’s plan for paid parking, says charging for parking is but a means to an end. And that end should take the form of a parking structure to accommodate more cars.

“I would say, to look to the future of Fayetteville, and have some type of master plan,” Sill said. “Absolutely, we need a (parking) deck.”

Many of her customers are Walton Arts Center patrons.

“As a business owner on this street, any way I can get parking for my customers, I’m going to do it,” she said.

Free Parking Remains

For the intrepid and the informed, free parking will not be a complete rarity if the plan passes. For example, the Fayetteville Public Library, at West Avenue and Mountain Street, has 208 spaces — all free. And the Center Street Church of Christ, at Center Street and School Avenue, has 68 spaces. It’s a private lot used by the church on Sunday mornings, but is often touted by the city as convenient Dickson Street parking. Parking on city-owned metered downtown lots is free after 6 p.m.

Part of the transition to paid parking, say city officials and business owners, will be educating customers and visitors.

Chase Wilkerson, who works the door at You Know Uno, a karaoke bar off Dickson Street, was under the impression that parking rates would be $4 an hour.

They won’t be.

The city proposes 50 cents an hour during the day and $1 per hour at night. Parking between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. will be free.

“We will launch an educational program once the final program is voted on by City Council,” said Sharon Crosson, Fayetteville parking and telecommunications manager.

“One thing we’re going to try to do is educate our customers, and tell them exactly were they can park and what they can expect to pay,” Feltner said.

Where differences of opinion about the parking plan start to surface is over details like rates, hours and policy decisions like putting a set amount of money aside for the Walton Arts Center every year. Sill supports the idea of transferring money from the parking program to the arts center. The problem, she said, is setting the real dollar amount, when the city should instead set the transfer as a percentage of collections.

“How can you say you’re giving them $289,000 a year,” Sill said. “What happens when we only bring in $250,000?”

“I don’t understand how we can set an amount that they’re getting when we don’t know how much money we generate in the end,” she added.

Epp, at Green Papaya, wishes the parking rates in his Dickson Street neighborhood matched those downtown where an hour of parking at one of the city meters costs 25 cents.

“Let’s look at the rates and let’s try to get on the same playing field as downtown,” Epp said.

Because the pay stations planned for Dickson Street will accept several forms of payment, including credit and debit cards, lowering the rates to 25 cents or less would barely support the cost of the program, Crosson said.

And there’s nothing to say the downtown rates will not be reconsidered at a later date, she added.

“The rates in the downtown area will be reviewed later this year and may or may not be increased,” Crosson said.

Driven By Arts Center

Driving the parking discussion is perhaps Dickson Street’s biggest player — the Walton Arts Center. About a year ago, the performing arts center held a news conference to announce it planned to launch a paid-parking program for the three lots surrounding the theater. In early December 2009, the City Council passed several resolutions expressing its intent move forward with comprehensive parking reform for the Dickson Street entertainment district. City officials met repeatedly with business leaders in the area and the Walton Arts Center to craft a proposal to address their needs and concerns. And to some degree, some of the business owners in the area see the needs of the Walton Arts Center put above all else.

“You can tell that the Walton Arts Center has been — not wined and dined — but they’ve been asked along the way, ‘How’s this going to affect you?’” Epp said.

“This whole thing, basically, only benefits the Walton Arts Center,” said Wilkerson, at You Know Uno. Wilkerson said his establishment does not generally receive spill-over traffic from the Walton Arts Center.

Sitting somewhere on everyone’s radar is where the Walton Arts Center will locate its second campus expansion. It has plans to build a 2,200-seat auditorium along with a 600-seat smaller space and a 100-seat black box studio. The Walton Arts Center is accepting site proposals for the new facility until Aug. 2. High on the list of site criteria is parking for at least 1,100 cars.

Fayetteville has made no secret that it would like to be on that very short list of sites. A number of observers say Bentonville, with its Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, being built and financed by Walmart heiress Alice Walton, is also high on the list of possible locations.

When asked if having the Walton Art Center possibly choose Fayetteville as its expansion location is playing a role in Fayetteville’s anxious desire to put a plan in place that will build a parking structure, Sill paused and chose her words carefully.

“The deck’s been talked about for five or six years,” Sill said. “We just started talking about the WAC leaving in the past two or three.”

Broyles, at the Wine Cellar, which sees a lot of business because of the Walton Arts Center, applauds anything Fayetteville can do to see that a Walton Arts Center expansion happens here.

“If this plan can result in a parking deck off Dickson in the foreseeable future and a commitment from the Walton Arts Center to expand in downtown Fayetteville, then paid parking will be 100 percent worth it.”

AT A GLANCE

Parking Rates

Proposed Parking Rates for the Dickson Street Entertainment District

Monday through Saturday, 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. — Free

Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. — 50 cents per hour, $3 maximum.

Monday through Friday 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. — $1 per hour, $5 maximum.

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. — 50 cents per hour, $3 maximum.

Saturday, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. — $1 per hour, $5 maximum.

Sunday, 2 a.m. to 1 p.m. — Free

Sunday, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. — 50 cents per hour, $3 maximum.

Sunday, 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Monday — $1 per hour, $5 maximum.

Number of Parking Spaces In Entertainment District

City-Owned Lots — 521

Street Spaces — 210

Mixed-Use Residential Permits and Nonresidential — 59

Residential South Zone — 79

Residential North Zone — 116

Total — 985

Private Pay Spaces — 823

Source: Staff Report

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