Moose lot purchase by city finalized for parking solution

Acquisition of a half-block-wide parking lot on the east side of the Moose Lodge has positioned the City of Greencastle to apply for revised funding to solve its downtown parking issues under the Stellar Grant program.

City Attorney Laurie Hardwick told Greencastle Redevelopment Commission members at their March meeting last Wednesday that she "just had them (Moose Lodge officials) sign the papers this afternoon."

City officials had presented a $100,000 offer to the Moose following two recent appraisals of the property and unanimous approval of the acquisition by the Redevelopment Commission at that appraisal price.

With the city already owning the property bounded by Jackson, Walnut and Indiana streets south of the square following prior acquisition of the First Christian Church parking lot and the old Darrell Felling law office building, the Moose lot purchase sets the stage for a public hearing on application for funding of the revised downtown parking project.

That hearing is set for 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 25 at City Hall, Mayor Sue Murray said. That will allow the project to be bid out as one total package now that the Moose lot property has been acquired.

The Moose site -- comprised of everything east of the building and bounded by Washington, Market and Franklin streets just a block west of the courthouse square -- will provide a second downtown surface lot in lieu of building a 146-space parking garage that originally had been part of the city's $19.2 million Stellar Grant effort.

Last August, city officials scuttled the proposed parking garage project designed for the site at Jackson, Walnut and Indiana streets after initial bids on a proposed $3.4 million structure came in nearly $1 million over estimates.

When a redesign on the garage and subsequent rebidding failed to produce bids any closer than three-quarters of a million dollars above estimated construction costs, city officials declared the project dead.

The one-time parking garage location is expected to deliver a 50-space surface parking lot. How many spaces will be in the Moose lot is presently undetermined.

Meanwhile, city officials have vowed to make the two new surface lots aesthetically pleasing, promising good lighting, and more than just a sea of blacktop and yellow lines.

For example, Ratio Architects has proposed the former parking garage site include a clock tower at the corner of Walnut and Indiana. Decorative lighting, green space and ornamental trees are also incorporated into the layout. The surface lot, as presently detailed, would be surrounded on three sides by some wrought-iron fencing and a low brick wall.

However, no such design has been made public on the Moose site.

Throughout the process, the goal of the parking garage project --which has evolved into a series of surface parking lots -- has been to keep long-term parking off the courthouse square.

Long considered essential to accomplishing that is having free parking nearby without threat of parking tickets, coupled with renewed strict enforcement of the two-hour parking zone.

Consequently, existing downtown surface lots -- Vine Street, the lot north of the Banner Graphic and the Columbia and North Indiana streets site -- are destined to become free parking locations once the two new lots are put in use and the two-hour limit enforcement revised.