- Alachua County is constructing a parking garage for the new civil courthouse on South Main Street in Gainesville.
- Downtown stakeholders urge the Board of County Commissioners to allow public access to the courthouse parking garage during off-hours.
- The County plans a cautious approach, first assessing court needs before potentially opening garage access to the public.
A construction crane looms overhead as workers finish a cinderblock wall for the in-the-works parking garage for Alachua County’s soon-to-be-built civil courthouse.
Downtown Gainesville stakeholders are already trying to lay claim to parking spaces at the garage and a city advisory board weighed in last week.
Public commenters representing South Main Station and The Top told the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on Tuesday that their businesses need more parking access, especially at night and on weekends when the parking garage would be empty of courthouse employees and jurors.
The BOCC plans to discuss the courthouse parking garage at an upcoming meeting.
Gainesville’s Downtown Advisory Board drafted a letter and voted to send it to the City Commission last week. The letter encourages the City Commission to advocate early for an open parking garage that the public can access.
The parking garage will attach to the civil and criminal courthouses being built at the new South Main Street court complex. Besides judges, clerks and jurors, the garage will also be used to transfer inmates from the jail to first appearances, hearings and trials.
The Downtown Advisory Board said it understands the need for a controlled garage at certain times, but it believes the court’s requirements could be met while also allowing public access.
Downtown Gainesville has two public garages in addition to on-street parking, which is free after 8 p.m. and on weekends.
The Southwest Parking Garage (105 SW 3rd St.) is next to The Streatery that recently opened, though improvements and orange construction barriers remain for now, and three blocks from Bo Diddley Plaza or half a mile from Heartwood Soundstage and South Main Station.
The Downtown Parking Garage is adjacent to Bo Diddley Plaza and a block from the Hippodrome Theatre. It’s nearly 0.45 miles from Heartwood Soundstage, an approximately 13-minute walk.
The new garage, about a block and a half southeast of the Southwest Parking Garage, would cut down the distance to South Main Station by a little over 1,000 feet or four minutes, according to MapQuest.
Mark Sexton, spokesperson for Alachua County, said the BOCC showed its seriousness to discuss and engage in the topic by scheduling the new parking garage as an item on an upcoming agenda.
He said the county has not ruled out the possibility of public use but planned a slow, cautious approach. Sexton said the plan is to build the garage, get a feel for the operations and usage to the court’s satisfaction and then decide how or if it can open the garage to broader use.
He said the design plans currently allow for that in the future if desired.
Sexton said a lot of parking capacity exists at the downtown garage where civil courthouse employees and jurors currently park. He said even more capacity at that garage will be available once those dedicated spots move to the new courthouse garage.
Downtown parking remains a controversial issue for some business owners and even the broader community.
A challenge to The Streatery was the lack of parking in front of businesses. Gainesville recently switched from free parking to paid, two-hour parking with the goal of increasing turnover in prime spots.
