Downtown District vows to end back-in parking

Time is about to expire on downtown Cedar Rapids' back-in parking.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to turn parking management over to the Downtown District business group, and the elimination of the much-unloved experiment may be one of the first indications of the change, said Doug Neumann, the district's president and CEO.

Neumann briefly reviewed the Downtown District's parking plan, the result of five months of study and public hearings. In addition to ending back-in parking, adopted in late 2008 along First Street SE and the Second and Third avenue bridges, the plan calls for new multi-space meters, the end of deferred maintenance at the city-owned parking ramps, tiered pricing for the parking ramps based on demand, and more than 60 other changes.

It's all designed to “manage for vacancy,” creating enough turnover to ensure motorists will find a few open spaces on every block, Neumann said.

Neumann said the plan is also designed to be funded through user fees, not the general fund.

“If we don't implement this plan, taxpayers will get the burden,” he said.

The city must next negotiate a management agreement with the district formalizing the arrangement.

The council also instructed flood-recovery director Greg Eyerly to go ahead with preparations to demolish the First Avenue Parkade and the flood-damaged Quality Chef Foods plant on Third Street SE. Cedar Rapids City Market Inc., the group hoping to locate a year-round market on the Quality Chef site, will have time to let the council know its plans before anything is actually torn down, Eyerly said, and he'll be able to begin asbestos removal operations in the meantime.