MSE and DBA seek sponsors for planters downtown

Main Street El Dorado and the Downtown Business Association are teaming up on a plan to maintain planters and hanging flower baskets in the Union Square District.

Chris Curry, MSE board member and manager of PJ’s Coffee, broached the topic during the board’s regular meeting in March, asking if downtown merchants were responsible for maintaining approximately 25 planter boxes that are scattered throughout downtown.

Curry noted then that PJ’s had its own plan to take care of the planters in front of the business.

The planters were progressively installed years ago as part of a major, downtown revitalization effort that was launched in the 1980s by Richard and Vertis Mason, downtown developers and business and property owners.

Curry’s question stemmed from recent actions that were taken involving a cityowned parking lot in the area of Elm, Cleveland and Oak streets behind First Baptist Church on Main Street.

Questions about the planters and hanging baskets arose after the parking lot, which is the easternmost of the two parking lots that are on the site, was switched from paid to free last fall.

The measure was taken as part of ongoing conversations about downtown parking and the absence of a downtown parking enforcement officer.

There have been complaints about people, particularly those who work downtown, taking advantage of and violating the city’s downtown parking ordinance, which limits parking to three hours per day during specified times in the downtown parking zone.

The city’s former parking enforcement officer was terminated from the position in January 2019.

Downtown merchants and the Masons have contended that the situation is hurting downtown businesses by blocking convenient parking spaces from customers.

A task force formed by Mayor Veronica SmithCreer is studying the matter and discussing ways to encourage downtown workers to park in spaces outside the enforcement zone.

Mason, who formerly managed the city’s paid parking lot, decided to relinquish the responsibility so the lot could available for free.

The city also has a free parking lot across from the MAD Amphitheater on Locust.

Parking fees that were collected for the former paid parking lot behind First Baptist had been used to maintain the downtown planters and hanging baskets.

Smith-Creer noted that not many people had been using the lot when it was paid parking and the fees that were collected were not enough to cover the costs of taking care of the downtown planters.

“What it took to maintain those planters was exceeding that revenue and (usage of the paid parking) lot kept decreasing,” she said, referring to recent comments by Union County Judge Mike Loftin, who said he previously rented 20 parking spaces in the lot for courthouse employees and he dropped the number of rented spaces to 16 due to low participation.

Loftin said the 16 spaces were not being fully used.

During a parking task force meeting last month, Loftin agreed to give up his designated parking space at the Union County Courthouse and use the city-owned lot behind First Baptist.

Two other county officials followed suit, opening up a total of three public parking spaces at the courthouse.

Smith-Creer said there has been an uptick in usage of the city lot behind First Baptist since free parking has become available. She said usage remains low for the parking lot on Locust.

Without any revenue coming in from the former paid parking lot, the mayor said the responsibility of maintaining the downtown planters and hanging baskets had fallen solely on the city.

“It costs a lot of money to plant and for upkeep. I got a comment that the baskets looked horrible and we needed to do something about them, so since they weren’t being maintained, we took them down,” Smith-Creer said.

Enter Main Street El Dorado and the Downtown Business Association.

In response to Curry’s question last month, Beth Brumley, executive director of MSE, said MSE and the DBA had come up with a plan in which they were seeking sponsorships to help out with the planters and the baskets, some of which have gone back up.

Brumley said a $175 sponsorship will cover the planters throughout the year and placards listing each sponsor’s name will be placed in the planters and baskets, which come to approximately 19.

She said local landscaper and lawn service Ray Hilyard got the bid for the project and is volunteering to plant “spring/summer-ish” flowers, which will be switched out with seasonal plantings in the fall.

Brumley and Smith-Creer also said the city will help out with watering in the summer.

“We just want to make sure that when our downtown has fully reopened after the coronavirus (pandemic) passes and visitors come back — we just want to be prepared,” Brumley said.