The closure of the 4th Street Parking Garage in has disrupted parking trends in Downtown Bloomington.
The garage was closed on January 2 after engineering inspections found dangerous structural damage.
Read more about the closure of the garage in January.
“It was determined that some of the integrity of the structure was starting to fail. After we completed our engineer study completed last May, we were uncomfortable with keeping it open any longer,” says Bloomington Deputy Mayor Mick Renneisen.
According to Renneisen, a majority of the garage was used by permit holders who have already been accommodated for. “About three quarters of those spaces were permit holders. Downtown business owners or employees were the ones using the structure. We found a parking surface lot that has accommodated, along with our other two garages , all of those permit holders. The pressure is more on the transient or in and out users.”
Take a look at my full unedited interview with Deputy Mayor Mick Renneisen.
Without the presence of the garage, those in-and-out users must now find parking elsewhere. This has caused a scarcity of open parking spaces in downtown Bloomington as well as busier traffic patterns. It also has Bloomington small businesses like the Buskirk Chumley Theater worried.
“One of the key drivers we hear from people in appreciation for the Buskirk Chumley and downtown Bloomington in general is the idea that they can drive in from out of town, and spend an entire day or evening walking throughout our downtown. Without the possibility to park the car in the first place, that no longer exists,” says Danielle McClelland, executive manager for the Buskirk Chumley Theater. She also argues that the lack of parking combined with the lack of public transportation to and from downtown Bloomington discourages patrons of downtown businesses. “Even if one wanted to use alternative transportation to come to our events at the BCT they could not do so.”
On April 3rd, McClelland gathered at a Bloomington City Council meeting with other Bloomington small business owners and citizens. They presented a series of arguments on the status of parking in downtown Bloomington. While many citizens supported the decision to build a new parking structure in place of the 4th Street garage, others argued for repair of the garage that would be less costly than the new garage construction, but would only last an estimated 5 years. After hearing discussion from the community, the City Council voted to approve the construction the new garage.
View the April 3rd City Council Meeting and Community Discussion (Discussion about the garage starts at 1:15:00).
The reconstruction plan has an estimated construction time of about 18 months. It is planned to be bigger and have more parking spots than the now closed 4th Street Garage.
