Study to aim at parking in Carrboro

It might offer 300 free spots, but the Hampton Inn & Suites deck in Carrboro doesn’t seem to be helping the town’s simmering parking problem.

The parking deck, which offers free two-hour parking spots, hasn’t been getting as much traffic as town officials had hoped.

The Carrboro Board of Aldermen initiated a parking study during its Nov. 12 meeting. The town crafted the proposal for the parking study after seven cars were towed from a Carr Mill Mall lot over a two and a half hour span during the Carrboro Music Festival last month.

Nathan Milian, the property manager for Carr Mill Mall, said many Carrboro visitors have been parking in the mall’s lot to shop at other stores in downtown Carrboro. Milian said the Hampton parking deck was a good idea, but the two-hour limit is hard for visitors to work around and has contributed to low traffic at the deck.

“I think it is a shame that the town didn’t make a provision for at least half of those spaces to be at least eight to 10 hour time limit,” he said in an email.

The spaces at the parking deck will be available for five years, at which point Carrboro’s lease with the hotel on the spaces will run out. Milian said he’s worried the loss of these spaces will be crushing for downtown businesses.

Alderman Jacquelyn Gist said when the Hampton Inn was being built, the hotel was required to prove it could create revenue in order to get bank loans. The town rented 300 spaces using taxes the hotel already had to pay.

The town leased the spaces for five years. After that, the spaces will no longer be free.

Milian said the lack of parking has hurt businesses at Carr Mill Mall — something he described as a constant battle. The mall has ample parking for customers, but he said it has been abused.

Gist said the lot might soon be fitted with gates to prevent students from further abusing it.

Gist said she understands the pressure from local businesses for free parking, but also that free parking is easily abused. She said businesses are worried about the effect charging for parking could have on the town’s growing downtown.

“The last thing we want to do is charge for parking,” she said.

Carrboro Vision 2020, a plan for future development in Carrboro, suggested perimeter parking lots on the edge of town that would use shuttles to bring people downtown.

Gist said she’s worried not finding a solution will result in problems for residents of Carrboro as well.

“We don’t want people parking all up and down the neighborhood streets,” she said.

What Gist was most hopeful for was for people to use alternate methods of transportation, but she acknowledged that it wasn’t possible for all of Carrboro’s visitors to do so.

“It would be great if everybody could take the bus or ride a bike or walk, but not everybody can do that.”

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