By Mike Odom
Staff Writer

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Hundreds of thousands of people looking for places to park happens only once a year in Fairhope during the annual Arts & Crafts Festival, where the crowd has been estimated this Friday through Sunday at a quarter million.

Eighteen parallel parking places were converted into 38 angled spots on Church Street between Fairhope and Magnolia avenues, according to city maps. The new spots were created to address a parking crunch coming during construction of a parking deck for the Hampton Inn. Staff photo by Mike Odom.

But day in, day out, parking can be very tight and highly sought after in this city’s small but bustling downtown area.

Over the year, one mainstay parking place for downtown merchants and tourists-in-the-know has been the public parking lot north of Fairhope Avenue and west of Section Street.

That will change soon.

“What we’re planning on right now is that the crane to set the steel and concrete will be here early Monday morning,” said Charlie Bassett, whose company is building the 89-room Hampton Inn on Section Street and Magnolia Avenue adjacent to the current parking lot. “We have been coordinating with the city to minimize impacts. But it will probably be the week after next that we start construction on the parking deck.”

That multi-story parking deck will be sited where the current public parking lot is located.

At that time, those who have been parking in that lot and walking a short distance to offices and stores to work or shop will have to look elsewhere, at least until the parking deck is finished sometime prior to the Christmas shopping season. But they will not have to look far, city officials said.

“We’ve added about 77 spots in the past few weeks,” said Jennifer Fidler, city public works director. “If downtown merchants and their employees would park a few blocks away and walk, leaving main streets in front of stores for customers, that would help a lot.”

Those parking places were created by converting parallel spots into angled parking places, or adding new angled parking places, she said.

The new parking spots are located in the following places: on Church Street between Fairhope and Magnolia avenues; on Church Street between Fels and Morphy avenues; on Summit Street between Morphy and St. James avenues; and Johnson Avenue between Section and Bancroft streets.

“The downtown merchants started talking to me about what are going to do when the parking lot is closed,” said City Councilwoman Debbie Quinn, who chaired an ad hoc committee to address the parking problems caused by the loss of parking places during construction of the parking deck. “We asked (city) staff to see where they could find new parking places downtown. We ended up finding another 180 spots that we’re not going to do at this time.”

Quinn said that some parking spots will be created in addition to the new 77 spots, probably on Bancroft Street behind Greer’s Supermarket, Summit Street near the University of South Alabama Baldwin County campus, and on Pine Street.

Quinn said the committee, which included Fidler, Ken Eslava, assistant director of public works; Gregg Mims, director of planning; and Sherry Sullivan, director of senior services at the James P. Nix Center, considered a number of approaches that included using a trolley to ferry people from more distant parking lots, such as at the Civic Center, or to add property for new parking.

“We decided to look at property that we already had,” she said. “The trolley idea was expensive. We came up with the additional 77 spots and took that to the City Council and got their blessing, then to the downtown merchants, the Board of Education and the Parking Authority. We’ve touched base with just about everybody.”

Although the new parking deck is being constructed by the Hampton Inn developer, it will be a public parking lot, with approximately 165 places for the public and 89 places set aside of hotel guests. The number of public spots will be determined by the city’s parking authority when it determines the size of each space. The size of the parking deck with public parking was increased during negotiations between the developer and the authority, Bassett said.

“The weather has set us back some, and we’ve slid into ‘09,” Bassett said, referring to original estimates that the hotel and parking deck would be completed by the end of this year. “But we’re looking at a couple things that may speed it up.”

In the meantime, starting in a week or so, locals accustomed to a short walk or parallel parking on the streets where the parking has been converted to angled spaces, will have to change their parking habits.

“Angled parking is probably safer than parallel,” Quinn said. “You don’t have to stop and back up, then open your door in traffic getting out. I’ve spoken with several merchants along Church Street, and they’re very excited and happy about the new parking there.”

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