CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Downtown merchants and property owners gathered Wednesday to hear City officials and consultants from Premier Parking outline potential changes to on-street metered parking in Downtown Clarksville.
City officials said the changes would create a more consumer friendly approach to downtown parking and overcome some of the current system’s equipment and enforcement challenges.
The plan discussed includes:
Deactivating all parking sensors, and making downtown parking a “pay to play” environment.
A 25-cent payment will be required at all meters to start a downtown parking session.
The first 25 cents provides 15 minutes of parking time and one hour of courtesy time.
The proposal calls for two types of payment structures at street meters:
One-hour of courtesy time with parking sessions limited to 3 hours on Strawberry Alley, Franklin Street and Third Street.
One-hour of courtesy time with parking sessions limited to 8 hours on First and Second streets.
In discussion, some property owners said the meters on First and Second streets between Main and Commerce streets should be limited to 3 hours, and not expanded to 8 hour maximums.
Another commenter noted that the start of work on Montgomery County’s Multipurpose Events Center will complicate downtown parking and that plans should be made to accommodate inevitable construction-related parking.
The Parking Commission will meet next at 3 p.m. July 30. Mayor Joe Pitts said he expects to have another Parking Roundtable with the downtown business community before a new plan is implemented.