Charles City’s Mill Race Parking project delayed to late-summer

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

A major downtown parking project has been delayed due to supply problems.

The Mill Race Parking Lot Project, slated to start construction in July, has been a long-awaited culmination of plans to increase downtown parking capacity sparked by the development of the Union House.

With the new downtown apartments and space for additional businesses and restaurants increasing expected demand for parking, the city of Charles City has been working on plans to expand the existing parking behind the building out into the rest of the city block.

“We knew we needed it,” said City Administrator Steve Diers.

Currently, the area behind Union House features 43 parking spaces. Under the new development plan, that number will expand to 128 spaces, creating ample parking for Union House and other businesses in the area.

The new parking lot will not only provide additional parking for downtown, but will change the traffic flow as well.

Currently, the area in question is where North Jackson Street curves into Riverside Drive. This makes for a convenient route to bypass the traffic lights on Main Street, but also makes for a potentially dangerous spot for pedestrians crossing the street to get to The Pub on the Cedar. With limited visibility due to the curve and both sides of the street frequently lined with parked cars, it can be a challenge for pedestrians to safely navigate, or for cars attempting to parallel park in that area.

“The pub is a very popular place and it’s hard as heck to get to,” said Diers.

Once complete, drivers will no longer be able to use North Jackson to make a straight shot onto Riverside Drive. Instead, traffic coming off of North Jackson will have to turn onto Clark Street to either enter the parking lot or continue on to the Main Street intersection.

Budgeting for the project came together this year as the city received a $1 million grant for storm water related projects. Finding that several of the city’s other storm water projects were ineligible to utilize the grant due to already receiving similar funds, the city found that it could make the parking lot project eligible by adding plans to install permeable pavers into the construction.

The city engineered its plans for the project and approved a competitive bid for construction earlier this year.

“The entire project is going to be paid by that sponsored project grant,” said Diers. “Now it’s just a matter of getting the project done.”

Construction was expected to begin in July, however the permeable pavers that are the lynchpin for qualifying for the grant have proven more difficult to acquire than anticipated.

Waiting on the permeable pavers has pushed the tentative start date into September. The contractor has 30 working days from the start of construction to complete the project, which now places the finish date in late October or mid-November.

The delay in the Mill Race project also means a delay for the new parking lot behind the Charles City Chamber of Commerce, which was slated to be done at the same time.