Parking crunch: Downtown Melbourne congestion triggers public workshops to collect opinions
Stroll Melbourne's New Haven Avenue downtown corridor on weekdays, and you're bound to see motorists creeping by slowly — scanning both sides of the street in search of scarce parking spaces.
In response, Walker Consultants, a Tampa firm specializing in transportation management, is launching a $9,890 study to identify and address parking needs across downtown Melbourne.
A pair of public workshops will take place Aug. 31 to collect parking opinions from merchants, shoppers and residents. The workshops will start at 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. in City Hall Council Chambers.
Similar City Hall parking workshops convened back in January 2017. According to votes cast by participants, the top downtown issues remain unchanged more than five years later:
The core shopping district needs high turnover of customer vehicles.
Low-turnover, employee-owned vehicles need pushed outside the core.
Clear directions are needed to guide motorists to parking areas.
Security and lighting are concerns.
Former Melbourne City Council member Dan Porsi attended one of those 2017 parking workshops. He recalled how a host of ideas emerged — and promptly vanished.
"I remember that we talked about everything from one-way streets, to taking some parking off of one side, to making a whole plaza in the heart of downtown for pedestrians. Even using meters," Porsi said during Friday's Melbourne Downtown Redevelopment Agency Advisory Committee meeting.
"And almost overwhelmingly, most of the merchants and everybody said no," Porsi said.
City officials and Melbourne Main Street are collaborating on the new parking-program project. Walker Consultants personnel will meet with City Hall staffers and explore downtown on foot to observe parking conditions, said Shaun Rycroft, city planner.
After the workshops, Walker Consultants will prepare a draft summary that includes recommended options for city officials.
"Downtown Melbourne's got a parking management issue. There's a lot of parking. There's a ton of spaces. But it's the way it's being managed," Melbourne Main Street Executive Director Kim Agee said during a 321 Millennials presentation Friday at Hell 'n Blazes Brewing Co.
"We're going to talk about all the (parking) inventory that's down here, how people are using it, how people are misusing it — like parking in the streets all day long and leaving their car," Agee said.
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Much of Melbourne's New Haven Avenue corridor is a 3-hour parking zone between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. U.S. Court of Appeals decisions nationwide have determined that placing chalk marks on tires of parked vehicles is unconstitutional. That's how Melbourne police used to enforce downtown parking times.
The City Hall garage offers free public parking and roughly 350 spaces. To better promote the facility to motorists, officials plan to install large illuminated signs on the sides of the five-level structure — which Agee said many downtown visitors mistakenly believe is exclusively for City Hall employees.
The $60,000 illuminated signage project is budgeted for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
On a larger infrastructure scale, a rebuild is in the works for downtown Melbourne's 1980s-era streetscaping — think sidewalks, decorative lampposts, trees, landscaping beds, curbing and crosswalks— from the post office eastward to U.S. 1.
City officials have budgeted $80,000 next year for streetscaping design study and public planning, $175,000 in 2024 for engineering, and $3 million in 2025 for construction.
"The fact that the parking management is being looked at in conjunction with downtown streetscape improvements is a good thing. Those can work hand-in-hand," Economic Development Manager Doug Dombroski told the redevelopment board Friday.
More than 300 businesses operate in Melbourne's downtown core area, Agee said. What's more, she said roughly 20,000 people work at the nearby Melbourne Orlando International Airport campus during the week.
"And we see them coming into downtown for lunch, for happy hour, for dinner, breakfast," she said.
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Agee said a Melbourne Main Street goal is to expand the bustling New Haven Avenue shopping-dining scene westward to the "Historic Downtown Melbourne" archway. She labeled the 175-space public parking lot behind the Highline apartment complex “very underutilized."
Tuesday night, the Melbourne City Council will vote to pursue one of two large-scale developments — an office complex or an apartment complex — that incorporate public-private parking garages.
The projects, which remain conceptual in nature, are proposed for construction atop the city-owned 1-acre Strawbridge Avenue parking lot, just east of the City Hall parking garage. This unimproved lot can accommodate 80 to 100 vehicles.
Council members are expected to discuss parking details as a key issue during Tuesday's meeting.
Back in November 2005, the City Council voted down a proposal to install parking meters. The idea emerged after an Atlanta consulting firm analyzed 1,580 spaces across a 12-block swatch of downtown Melbourne.
That study estimated that downtown employees and owners who park in "prime" on-street spots were costing merchants $410,800 per year in potential sales.
In response, city workers affixed green stickers to street signs in March 2006 to shorten 3-hour parking zones to 2 hours. But some beauty parlors and restaurants protested, generating a petition drive. The 2-hour zones were eliminated months later.
Minor parking programs have emerged in recent months. In January 2020, City Hall partnered with Ameristar Parking Solutions to launch $10 valet parking service on Friday and Saturday nights to free up spaces for dinnertime and late-night crowds.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck, shuttering dining rooms and drying up business activity along New Haven Avenue. Designated curbside pickup zones debuted in March 2020 so customers could grab takeout food orders.
Rick Neale is the South Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @RickNeale1
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Downtown Melbourne street parking issues: City wants your opinion
