Downtown Woodstock Valet Parking Program in the Works

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City staff members are in the process of determining what’s the best way to maximize the precious parking spaces available for use throughout downtown Woodstock.

The City Council on Monday heard an update to what options the staff is looking at, one of which could include a valet program.

Brian Stockton, director of the city’s Office of Economic Development, briefed the council on various options under consideration. Stockton, who along with City Manager Jeff Moon and Community Development Director Jessica Guinn, recently visited the city of Rome to see what best practices that city is doing that could work in Woodstock.

Stockton said Rome has parking management ”down to a science” in its central business district.

Woodstock has taken some recommendations from its 2012 Livable Centers Initiatives Update and put those into practices, such as installing wayfinding signage and producing a downtown parking map.

One of the recommendations the city is exploring includes introducing a parking management — or valet — program. Century House Tavern and FireStone Wood Fired Pizza Grill currently offers valet parking to its patrons on the south end of Chambers Street, Stockton said.

Additionally, Salt Factory Pub, which will open next week, has also expressed interest in expanding the parking available for its customers.

“Instead of having these people out managing all of these different valet programs, we thought that stepping in and having the DDA (Downtown Development Authority) help manage that and facilitate that...(and) to produce one valet parking option for all of downtown, no matter whose visiting what, was a good way to go,” Stockton added.

The proposed areas that would be reserved for valet parking would be a drop-off location between Salt Factory Pub and Reel Seafood, which would require the DDA to modify its agreements with Woodstock United Methodist Church and Community and Southern Bank to utilize their lots for valet services; the current location on Chambers Street; and one the partially developed town home lot on Wheeler Street behind Freight Kitchen and Tap.

Stockton noted Rome also recently introduced a parking committee, which is made up of downtown businesses, residents, city staff and other interested parties. The committee allows business owners “to keep each other honest” when it comes to encouraging entrepreneurs to park farther away from their establishments and leave those prime spots open for their customers to use.

In Woodstock, a proposed committee would help facilitate the program, and would also coordinate reserving certain spaces businesses can use to accept deliveries during certain times of the day.

The committee would also implement designated area for employee parking.

With the valet parking proposal, Stockton said the city is trying to open up two more private lots — which would add roughly 150 spaces to the inventory — that could be used as part of the initiative.

“We’ve had good conversations with one of the owners about that moving forward,” he said.

Two other recommendations stemming from the 2012 LCI plan were for the city to consider installing 30 meters along Chambers and East Main streets and to also expand parking options with a project such as a parking deck, both of which were never implemented by the city. Stockton said he’s not recommending the city move forward with installing meters.

Moon added the city has seen examples of cities that have implemented parking plans “that didn’t go so well,” so the city wants to take a page from Rome’s playbook and not dictate from a top-down approach. Any recommendation from the committee would come from the force of the businesses owners and others on the body as opposed to just city staff’s input.

Mayor Donnie Henriques said he liked the idea of establishing a committee, and getting downtown business owners involved in an issue that’s sure to affect their bottom lines.

“(You) got to have their buy-in,” he added.

Image via Shutterstock