A downtown parking garage is one of six ideas that the Downtown Association will ask the city to explore to reduce concerns about core-area parking.
"I have always thought myself that a parking garage downtown would be super-efficient, whether or not that comes from the private sector or if it comes from the city," board member Marnie Stone told a meeting of the business group's board on Wednesday night.
"I'm not sure of the price of all of that, but it's something that could be explored to at least know at some point what the cost would be."
Stone suggested underground parking also be considered.
The six ideas that the Downtown Association wants the city to look at came from a town hall meeting one week ago that was moderated by Stone.
It was Anne-Marie Caicco from the Healing Loft wellness centre who suggested a parking garage be built to address concerns about a bulk sale of 90 parking passes in the city-owned Spring-March and Brock-Albert lots.
The passes were assigned last month to North Shore Tribal Council and District of Sault Ste. Marie Housing Corp.
Seventy-four of the passes, which allow parking on a first-come, first-serve basis, will be at the city-owned Brock-Albert lot.
The other sixteen passes will be at the Spring-March lot.
Issuing the passes became a priority for the city when a buyer emerged for the former Social Services building at 548 Albert St. East, which was slated for demolition after a new Social Services building was built on the same site.
The problem was that there were parking requirements for the North Shore Tribal Council development, requirements that couldn't be met if both buildings remained on the lot.
There was no space to provide all the needed parking on the property, and no easy way to legally divide 548 Albert into two separate lots to facilitate the sale.
So city council was persuaded to bulk-sell parking passes in the Brock-Albert and Spring-March lots, raising concerns there would be insufficient parking for shoppers and others who use those lots.
Last night, the Downtown Association board re-affirmed its support for North Shore Tribal Council's decision to locate a health care centre with 50 employees in the old Social Services building.
"We're excited about North Shore tribal council coming to our neighbourhood," said Nick Rosset, Downtown Association chair.
"That's a very positive thing for us and the city," Rosset said.
"And we want to make sure that our concerns don't get in the way of that happening. But if there's a way that some of the parking concerns related to that can be mitigated, some of the creative ideas that were brought up at the [July 4 town hall] meeting, maybe could prove useful to achieve that."
Here are the other five ideas the Downtown Association will ask the city to explore:
- a suggestion from Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo that the city stop selling more parking passes to alleviate fear about parking passes selling out. This wouldn't stop annual pass holders from buying passes but would prevent additional passes from being sold
- an idea from Angela Romano that carpooling or transit be used to shuttle Social Services employees to and from their building
- a suggestion from Angela Caputo that signage be used to reserve spaces closer to businesses for 'downtown shoppers only'
- a recommendation from Rev. John Wilson that signage direct parking preferences to guide the flow of parking traffic
- a proposal from Jake Rendell stated that spending more for municipal transit would help people make the transition from driving to walking