New parking facility opens downtown

It's now a little easier to find a parking space downtown.\nAfter a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, the six-story Walnut Center parking garage opened for business.\nThe $5.6 million facility, which contains 385 metered and leased spaces and will feature retail stores on the first floor, is on the northeast corner of Walnut and Seventh streets. Parking is available through the Walnut Street entrance. \nFinanced and constructed through a public-private partnership, the city hopes the garage will relieve some of the parking congestion downtown.\n"This new facility is a welcome addition to the city's downtown," Mayor John Fernandez said. "The added parking downtown certainly fills a need identified by merchants and makes downtown a convenient and attractive location to come to shop, eat and enjoy all the amenities that the area has to offer."\nConstruction on the project began last June. It features nearly 9,000 square feet of retail space and 6,000 square feet of space for a telecom facility.\n"The retail space will add to the vibrancy of the area by attracting more customers downtown to shop," Fernandez said.\nOne business, Scottie's Brewhouse, has already committed to the space.\nThe "telecom hotel" is part of the city's initiative to draw high-tech businesses to Bloomington. An Indianapolis-based tech company, Metro Xmit, has leased the space, which it will sublease to other telecom businesses.\nThe "hotel" allows companies to cut their costs by letting them share Internet servers and access to fiber optic cables.\n"The telecom space will serve as an important hub for information exchange in our community and across Indiana," Fernandez said. "We feel it is important to provide our local technology firms with all the competitive advantages possible to survive in our changing economy."\nThe parking facility stretches over five floors, with 100 metered spaces open to the public at 25 cents per hour.\nWith the spaces around the courthouse square usually occupied by county government employees, it is hoped the garage will attract more consumers to downtown. \n"Winninger-Stolberg is pleased to be part of this unique public-private partnership to bring much-needed parking and retail development to the central business district," developer Eric Stolberg said. "We believe Bloomington is ahead of the curve in using partnerships to develop the downtown core and support local businesses."\nUnder the arrangement, the city is leasing the land to Winninger-Stolberg for $1 a year in exchange for being able to set affordable parking rates. After about 30 years, the city will own the facility.\nBloomington Parking Enforcement Director Jack Davis said the metered spaces are already in use, and the city hopes to start leasing the remaining spaces soon. Costs for annual leases range from $320 to $540. \n"I think this will benefit a lot of people who live downtown and work downtown," Davis said. "Hopefully, it will open up a lot of spaces from the courthouse square"