Cape Girardeau council to consider downtown parking ordinance study

The Cape Girardeau City Council will consider an ordinance tonight that, if approved, would allow a parking study to analyze the biggest issues and needs of the downtown area.

Parking in the historical downtown area -- home to retail stores, restaurants and some residential spaces -- has long been an issue for the city, but the issue has fallen under even more scrutiny since the 2012 remodeling of Broadway.

The downtown corridor's face-lift came with expanded sidewalks that eliminated some of the street parking, but the city worked with property owners in the area on parking lot sharing agreements to replace the lost spaces.

Demolition of the old Convention and Visitors Bureau at the corner of Broadway and Main Street opened up space for a parking lot, also helping alleviate the problem.

Still, parking remains one of the biggest issues downtown. The ordinance under consideration by the council would allow the city to perform a parking study in the boundaries of the Downtown Community Improvement District, including an analysis of the existing parking inventory and development of modeling scenarios on parking issues. The district encompasses the eastern portion of Broadway, as well as Water, Main and Spanish streets and sections of adjoining streets.

The city, along with the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce and Old Town Cape, applied for and was awarded a traffic engineering assistance program grant administered through the Missouri Department of Transportation that will pay 80 percent of the costs for the study. The grant will fund $8,000; meanwhile, the Industrial Development Authority of Cape Girardeau County will fund $4,000 and the downtown Special Business District will offer $3,000, according to city reports.

The study will look at the parking needs of three sub-districts: lower Broadway, from Middle Street to Spanish Street, a concentrated area of professional offices and service-related industries; upper Broadway, from West End Boulevard to Middle Street, which primarily includes small businesses; and the Riverfront district, which includes Water, Main and Spanish streets and features retail, dining, service-related businesses and some residential spaces.

In its grant application to acquire funding for the study, city staff said parking in the area of the downtown CID is "crucial to entice development, revitalization and, potentially, rehabilitation in our downtown area."

"[The downtown area] has experienced significant business development within the last two years equaling $4.75 million in private investment," said the city's grant application. "Even though much has been developed, the vacancy rates in professional office buildings, entertainment venues, residential and retail space are still too high and must be addressed. One of the key reasons given by larger-scale developers for not investing in downtown is the lack of coordinated public parking facilities."

Safety improvements also could be realized, wrote city staff, by determining whether a better placed parking area could help reduce congestion along two key roads, Broadway and Main Street.

srinehart@semissourian.com

388-3641

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.