City officials see initial design for new parking lot

Architect's design for the proposed surface parking lot at Indiana, Walnut and Jackson streets in Greencastle.

With the idea of a downtown Greencastle parking garage as dead to the world as disco and dinosaurs, city officials have gotten their first look at a parking lot design being considered in its stead.

Ratio Architects has created the design for a 50-space parking lot at Jackson, Walnut and Indiana streets, occupying the spot where a two-story, 146-space parking garage was once envisioned as the ultimate solution to longstanding Greencastle parking issues and diminished development around the courthouse square.

It was to have been the most expensive single piece of the city's $19.5 million Stellar Grant effort. But the original bids provide to be a real budget buster, coming in more than $1 million over estimates.

Rebidding wasn't much better. Engineers were confident new bids would be much lower than those original submissions, but that didn't happen and led to the decision to scuttle the garage idea altogether and focus instead on at least two surface lots.

The drawing the Greencastle Redevelopment Commission got a look at Wednesday evening's meeting was the first of two anticipated surface lots.

"We probably could have had more spaces," Mayor Sue Murray conceded, alluding to the design.

However, city officials have stressed their desire that the surface lots be aesthetically pleasing with good lighting, and not just a sea of blacktop and yellow lines.

Complete with a clock tower shown at the corner of Walnut and Indiana, and decorative lighting, green space and ornamental trees incorporated into the design, the parking lot, as presently detailed, would be surrounded on three sides by a low brick wall and some wrought-iron fencing.

"We're moving along quickly on a second lot," City Attorney Laurie Hardwick told the Redevelopment Commission at its November meeting.

The overall project, however, cannot go out for bids until the city has both parking lot proposals in hand.

City officials continue to examine additional locations in the downtown area for surface parking lots with the ultimate goal of getting long-term parking off the courthouse square.

One element essential to accomplishing that is providing free parking close to downtown without threat of parking tickets. Thus the existing surface parking lots that ring the downtown area -- Vine Street, the lot north of the Banner Graphic and the Columbia and North Indiana streets site -- will all become free parking locations once the new lots are in use.

The initial parking lot design has the blessing of both the City Council and First Christian Church, which sold a portion of the site to the city and will retain the benefit of parking for its church services, Mayor Murray said.

One silver lining in the new design is that it offers a possible solution to drainage issues both in the alley south of the proposed site and the Walnut Street side that drains to the west but funnels large stormwater pipes into smaller pipes as it travels away from the area.

"We'd been scratching our heads about how to take care of the drainage in the area," the mayor noted, explaining that the architects are being asked to design a retention area under the parking lot.

"That's a real positive in terms of doing some major, major work to the drainage system," she added.