Monthly rates in parking ramps won't jump July 1; city likely to give downtown property owners parking responsibility

CEDAR RAPIDS -- Rates in the city's downtown parking ramps likely will stay at reduced flood-recovery levels for the foreseeable future instead of jumping to $60 a month on July 1 as had been planned many months ago.

At a special luncheon meeting Tuesday to discuss downtown parking, the City Council also signaled that it likely would follow the recommendation of a national parking consultant and turn over the management of the city's downtown parking operation to downtown property owners.

Dennis Burns, regional vice president of Kimley-Horn Associates Inc. of Phoenix, told the City Council that cities with dozens of priorities never make downtown parking a priority like downtown property owners can.

Burns said downtown property owners were best positioned to know how to use the downtown parking system as an economic development tool to attract businesses and customers to the downtown.

He predicted that property owners would bring a new system of on-street parking meters to the downtown, which would replace eight or nine meters with one and allow motorists to use credit cards to plug a meter. The new meters, better signage, more customer-friendly tactics and brighter entrances to parking ramps all will give the city's downtown a “progressive” feel, Burns said.

After the Tuesday meeting, Doug Neumann, president and CEO of the Downtown District, said many of the details of a city-downtown agreement on parking have yet to be worked out. But he said downtown property owners have wanted to have their chance to improve the downtown parking operation for years. He added, “We're well positioned to take on more responsibility.”

Burns said the city's downtown system of parking does not carry much debt, but at the same time, he imagined that the system has maintenance needs that have been put off.

Council member Chuck Wieneke said taxpayers aren't going to be happy if the City Council turns management of the parking system over to the downtown property owners while citywide taxpayers foot the bill for the system.

The downtown “stakeholders” need to have some money in the mix, too, Wieneke said.

Mayor Ron Corbett, who in recent weeks floated the idea of free downtown parking for a decade, said Tuesday that raising the current monthly ramp rate from $30 to $60, which had been planned when the $30 post-flood rate was put in place, did not make any sense. The downtown remains in flood recovery, he said.

Burns suggested that the city consider incremental increases, first raising the rate to $40 a month at some point, and so on. He also said rates at the most coveted ramps should be higher than in ramps that require a longer walk.

Council member Monica Vernon said the downtown property owners were best equipped to understand the nuances needed to make the parking operation a benefit to the downtown's revitalization. At the same time, too, she said the City Council needed to know the ramifications for taxpayers of shifting the parking responsibility to downtown property owners.

The Downtown District's Neumann said economic development was the “key” word. “Parking needs to be a partner to economic development, not a barrier,” he said.

As for the city's new experiment with back-in angle parking, consultant Burns said residents here don't understand it, and he suggested that the city get rid of some of it.

Neumann said the Downtown District still wants a new downtown parking ramp with a preferred location on Second Street SE between Sixth and Seventh avenues SE. He put the price of the ramp at $15 million, and he said the best chance to fund it would come from federal and state funds.