City officials change downtown beautification plan, add some parking spaces back

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Downtown parking concerns are still top of mind for many people Wednesday night.

A meeting took place where stakeholders and business owners brought their concerns to the table yet again.

They are fighting against part of the multi-million dollar beautification plan that would ditch parking for a bike lane.

We’ve been telling you about this project for months now.

Business owners were looking for a compromise Wednesday night.

For many, that meant taking out the proposed bike lane and adding parking back in.

The city says some parking will be lost regardless, because many of the spaces now have to be fixed because they’re too narrow.

However, for many business owners, they’re worried the project could threaten the very thing keeping their business alive: parking.

For many businesses in downtown Augusta, Broad Street isn’t just an address, it’s their life’s work, which means losing parking means losing hope.

”I don’t know that I’m super optimistic that we’re going to get what we need on the 500 block as far as parking. So I think we’re still going to be without storefront parking, which is going to really impact us,” said Penelope Ballas-Stewart, Luigi’s owner.

Those few feet between a customer’s car and the front door could make all the difference, and a project meant to revitalize downtown may instead leave it empty.

”Is it going to be worth it at the end? And if we lose that much parking, it concerns me that we won’t be able to stay there,” said Ballas-Stewart.

Many say the problem is losing parking spaces to a proposed bike lane.

”I asked the question, why is it on the 500 block? We lose our storefront parking? The answer? The bicycle lane,” said Ballas Stewart.

The public started a petition with over 1,600 signatures, asking the city to rethink its plans.

That is the public making their voice known. They’re not going to walk blocks to get to come eat with us,” said Ballas-Stewart.

John Ussery is with traffic engineering, and he says they’re listening and that they’ve already made changes.

”There was just over 400 parking spaces in the approved design, but we did ask the engineer to go back and see if he can add more parking, and he was able to add in another 170 or 180 parking spaces,” said Ussery.

However, he says nothing will change until parking is managed.

”If we limited how long you could be there, or if there was metered parking and you had to pay to be there for a certain amount of time, it encourages people to come down and utilize the businesses, but at the same time, they’re not just gonna take up the space for hours and hours and hours,” said Ussery.

There’s still hope that Augusta can grow without leaving behind the businesses that built it.

”Utilize the parking decks that we have, I don’t think we need to build new parking decks when we have underutilized parking decks as they stand. But we do need to make sure that we have convenient parking for our businesses. This is our central business district, and it must be beneficial for the businesses to survive,” said Phil Wahl, president of Security Federal Bank.

Ussery says typically it’s hard to go back and make changes this late into a project, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

He also says that after Wednesday night, he hopes communication with neighbors will improve, and plans to use social media and emails to communicate about the project.

For now, the plans are still in motion, but so is the community.

And Wednesday, business owners reminded everyone: downtown Augusta still has a voice.

The next meeting is set for May 29 from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Old Fort Discovery on the riverwalk.

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