Fayetteville looks at changes to parking near square

FAYETTEVILLE — Visitors would be able to use their phone or credit card to park close to the downtown square, instead of having to dig to find change, under code changes the City Council will consider today.

The city plans to upgrade parking meters near the square if the changes are approved. The upgrades also would raise the cost to park at certain spots.

Parking spots on streets such as Block and East avenues and Mountain and Center streets have had coin-operated machines for decades.

About 250 of those machines would be replaced with meters that accept payment with a credit card, through a mobile app or contactless methods with a phone or credit card. The meters would still accept nickels, dimes and quarters, said Justin Clay, parking manager for the city.

Parking lots near the square with individual meters would have pay stations replace them, much like the ones on and near Dickson Street. The city owns five surface parking lots near the square with about 275 spaces.

The rate to park at an onstreet meter would increase to 50 cents an hour from 25 cents. The rate for off-street lots would increase from 15 cents to 25 cents an hour.

The rate increase would help pay for the ongoing operation of the meters, which involve fees and networking costs for the city, Clay said. The coin meters don’t cost the city anything to make them function. Estimated cost to the city to keep the new meters running and to pay credit card fees would be about $60,000 yearly, he said.

Parking on the square will remain free with a two-hour time limit. The hours for which drivers must pay to park also will stay the same. Paid parking is in effect on streets near the square from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Additionally, the city would create a permit program for residents who live near the square to park at city-owned lots close. There also would be a program to provide a 90% discount for people who work on or near the square to park.

Areas on or near Dickson Street and around Wilson Park have permit programs for residents to park near their homes. No resident-only program exists near the square, Clay said.

Permits are available for long-term parking at cityowned lots and parking decks near the square with rates varying from $30 to $50 per month for residents or people who work nearby.

The proposal would reduce that cost. A residential permit to park at city-owned lots near the square would cost $25 per year. People who work on or near the square also would be eligible for a 90% discount to park at cityowned lots. For example, if the employee would normally pay for eight hours of time at 25 cents an hour, that would come to $2. With the discount, the amount would be 20 cents.

The idea is to provide users more payment options, Clay said.

“I really feel like this is one step in laying a foundation for a seamless user experience throughout our expanding downtown,” he said. “It gives us some flexibility to offer some scalable, common-sense parking solutions for existing and future businesses, residents and activities.”

People who park in front of one of the new meters would have a grace period to run in quickly somewhere and come back, Clay said.

Sensors on the meters would have the ability to detect when a car pulls in and out. Parking staff will get a notification when a car gets into the space. If the city sets a 15- or 30-minute grace period, the staff member would get a second notification after the car exceeds the grace period without paying, Clay said. At that point, the person would get a ticket.

The technology also would enable visitors to know which spaces are open through a mobile app, Clay said, so they wouldn’t have to drive around to find an open spot. Users would have the ability to add money through the app if they need more time without having to go outside and feed a meter, he said.

Wade Ogle, owner of Block Street Records, said customers frequently come in and ask for change to park in front of the store. Ogle will give them a quarter out of the register. He said he also sees people paying the meter past 6 p.m. and on weekends when they don’t need to.

Ogle said he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of raising the price, but if the new meters give people more payment options, that could be a suitable trade-off. He wondered if providing a grace period in which people don’t have to pay would offset the revenue the city would gain from increasing the price.

“The people doing it at the city have certainly given it way more thought than I have,” Ogle said. “I’d probably just defer to them and assume they’ve thought it through.”

Upgrading the technology was made possible through the dissolution of the independent Off-Street Parking Commission in October 2020. The commission, comprised of property owners, owned three parking lots near the square. They were the E.J. Ball building lot on Church Avenue between Center and Meadow streets; a lot southwest of Church Avenue and Center Street; and a third on Spring Street between Block and East avenues.

The commission gave the city the lots and about $700,000 in parking revenue it had accumulated, Clay said. The city plans to use about $300,000 of the money for the meter upgrades, with the rest reserved for maintenance of the lots, he said.

The city also owns two other lots in the area. There is one on the north side of Mountain Street near City Hall and another at the northwest corner of East Avenue and Meadow Street.

Those five lots will have kiosks set up for paid parking, as opposed to individual meters.

Jennifer Weber, owner of Loafin Joe’s on Mountain Street, said she wasn’t excited about putting the kiosks at the off-street lots. She said she’s had trouble with the machines on Dickson Street working properly, and it can be hard to remember the number of the space.

However, Weber said she understood raising the price. The price of everything is going up, she said.

Weber said she just hopes the city helps people understand how the new meters work. The current signs around the square with the hours and rates are small and often people don’t see them, she said.

“How are they going to let the consumer know they have a grace period if they’re just running into the store to do a pickup order?” Weber said. “We would probably have people who would want to park and run in and not pay 50 cents at the meter. I just wonder how they’re going to get the word out to do that.”

Clay said if the City Council approves the changes, the next step would be to work out the details and hire companies to provide the new meters. The city hopes to have the new meters and programs in effect by early next year, he said.