New Parking Facility on Parrott Avenue?

With the discussion surrounding the Worth Lot for a new parking garage all but dead, city officials are now turning their attention to another proposal on Parrott Avenue.

At the request of Mayor Eric Spear, the Parking and Traffic Safety Committee is currently working with the city’s Planning Department on a proposed two-level deck parking structure that would be located in the city’s Parrott Avenue municipal lot adjacent to Citizens Bank on Pleasant Street.

If approved, the double deck parking facility would be free and could provide the city with an unspecified number of additional parking spaces.

The parking panel is scheduled to get an updated conceptual plan from city planning officials when it meets on Thursday morning at City Hall at 8 a.m. The agenda can be viewed on the city's website.

Nicholas Cracknell, the city's principal planner, wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday morning that he is still working on the images of the proposed facility that he will present to the committee on Thursday. Cracknell would not say how many additional spaces would be created if an additional parking deck was created above the current ground level parking or how much the project would cost.

He indicated that all of this information along with the design images would be presented at the committee meeting so that the committee's members would be able to comment on the proposal first before it is released to the public.

Earlier this month, Spear’s attempt to revive talks about a potential new parking garage at the Worth Lot were rebuffed by several city residents who spoke against it during the last City Council meeting on April 1.

When the proposal, the vote also means that the Worth Lot cannot be considered for any future parking garage proposals until a new council is seated in January 2014. In March, the council adopted a motion made by City Councilor Anthony Coviello to entertain other development proposals for the Worth Lot.

The advantage of the Parrott Avenue municipal lot is that the city already owns the property and it is a short walk to downtown Portsmouth.

During the Parking and Traffic Safety Committee’s deliberations in 2012 to identify the best potential sites for a new parking garage, Parrott Avenue was high on the list.