W H AT ’ S I N S I D E
JANUARY 2015 • THE CSRA’S ONLY MONTHLY BUSINESS MAGAZINE
Augusta tops in employment growth................... 2 Chef Belinda adds spice to life.................................. 6 Buzz Bits........................................................................8,.9 Businessperson of the Month: Jay Waldron.......12 The Internet is growing more dangerous...........16 New Year is the time to update websites............20
Park Place
Different solutions offered for downtown parking dilemma but all agree – something has to be done By Gary Kauffman, Editor
At the back of Vintage Ooollee on Broad Street
you can find a bona fide Augusta parking meter, circa 1940, harkening back to the days when people had to have some loose change in order to park along Broad Street. That era ended in the 1970s, but the parking situation in the downtown area has some people talking about bringing meters back. And a lot of people talking about what a bad idea that is. While there are passionate voices on both sides of the parking meter debate among downtown business owners, one thing they agree on is that there is a parking problem, namely, not enough available spaces for customers. “Come down here almost any morning and you’re lucky to find a parking space on our block,” said David Hutchison, owner of The Book Tavern, 936 Broad St.. “You get a lot of people circling around the block. You talk about running off customers with parking meters – nothing runs off customers like not being able to find a parking space.” Playing the part of the villain in most business owner’s accounts is the city government – not for any action, but for what they feel is a complete lack of action and planning. Hutchison cited a 2005 study the city commissioned about downtown parking that found the streets parked at 100 percent capacity at peak times and 80 percent in off-peak. “If a decade ago we had a parking problem, it’s even worse now,” Hutchison said. Ooollee Bricker, owner of Vintage Ooollee, 1121 Broad St., conducted her own study of the parking situation surrounding her store. She found that in the 1100 block of
Ooollee Bricker stands in a front of her store, Vintage Ooollee, in a parking space that is often filled. She advocates parking management but not parking meters. Photo by Gary Kauffman
Broad Street there are 100 parking spaces when both sides of the street and the median are combined. She surveyed 13 of the 18 businesses on the block and found that employees take up 59 of the spaces during the day. Residents of apartments in the block take up some of the remainder, although she didn’t have a hard count on that. “I’ve had a resident park in front of my shop for two or three days,” she said. She doesn’t necessarily fault the employees who park there because there are few alternatives other than parking on the streets behind the stores. “But the problem with parking on Ellis and Jones is that it’s not safe,” she said. “They need better lighting.” It is of particular concern at this time of year when darkness falls by the time many employees clock out and head to their cars.
“We close at 6 p.m. so it’s dark back there (Ellis Street),” said Nan Rodriguez, owner of Nan’s Collections, 960 Broad St. “I don’t want to take the chance.” Hutchison thinks the danger is overrated, saying he and his wife have parked on Ellis for years at all hours of the night and never had an issue. But he does agree that better lighting along the streets off Broadway would encourage more people to park there. The solutions offered by the business owners vary, but all agree that the city of Augusta has to develop a definitive parking management plan sooner rather than later. Here are a few of the proposed solutions: Parking Meters – This is the spoon that has stirred the simmering pot of parking woes of late. Several meetings See PARKING, page 2