Parking expansion planned for City Beach

Sunny summer days can make it difficult to find a parking spot around City Beach, but a plan by the city to create another parking lot in the neighborhood could add a few more spots.

The city plans to purchase property at 55 Woodland Place, which is one block south of the City Beach boat launch. City Council on Monday approved the purchase price of $270,000 plus Realtor fees.

“This is a great opportunity,” councilor Jen Frandsen said. “We’ve had all those complaints about parking at City Beach and it isn’t stopping.”

“This property is important for City Beach,” councilor Sarah Fitzgerald added. “It is important to provide this benefit to citizens.”

City Manager Chuck Stearns did caution that adding a parking lot in the area could increase the number of visitors to City Beach, which he noted can handle additional usage.

“I just think that this purchase will not solve the parking problems at City Beach,” Stearns said. “If it induces more usage, we may have the same parking problem with a more crowded City Beach.”

A house on the property will have to be torn down to make way for an estimated 30 parking spaces that could be created on the lot. The city does not yet have a cost estimate for removing the house.

“There is some associated costs with tearing down the house,” Stearns said. “Any property in the City Beach area is going to be expensive unless it’s a tear down house.”

The city will have to design a parking lot with drainage, paving and landscaping. Using estimates from previously constructed city parking lots, Stearns, said he expects the development cost of the City Beach parking lot to be $180,000.

The property qualifies as blighted property, according to the city, and the purchase would be paid for using tax increment funds.

Stearns said that while there is sufficient TIF cash to purchase the property, development of the parking lot will likely have to wait until funding is found or delay another project to pay for development of the lot.

The city has been looking to add parking at City Beach for a number of years, but property has been hard to find.

A deal in 2013 for the city to purchase three lots at the corner of Lakeside Boulevard and Oregon Avenue was planned to create a parking lot, but the deal fell through when an agreement couldn’t be reached with the owners.