Tumlin said he is meeting with Cobb Commission Chairman Sam Olens on Jan. 19 about the deck, at the request of Olens, to hammer out a few requests from the county, such as access to the deck from Hansell Street.
Expected to open in February 2011, the deck is being built next to City Hall on the site of the former Fulton Federal Savings & Loan in conjunction with the construction of a new Cobb Superior Court building on Haynes Street. The county will charge a rate of $5 a day to park there.
Olens criticized the City Council in October for being "very short-sighted" in its failure to partner with the county to build the new deck. He said for as long as he could remember, the city has needed and sought additional parking near the Square. But since the council wasn't interested in partnering to build the deck, the county is paying for it alone.
"We are fully paying it due to the reduced construction cost and lower interest rates. We were not interested in the numerous restrictions proffered by the city," Olens said.
Tumlin said the county can borrow money at such a cheap rate now that it doesn't need the city to participate.
"A very kind bond market is a better partner than the city of Marietta," Tumlin said.
Virgil Moon, the county's director of support services, said the deck will have 552 spaces, 240 of which are public and 312 are for county employees. The $19 million cost will be funded with fixed rate revenue bonds.
While the city doesn't have as strong a voice at the table since it's not helping to fund the deck, Tumlin said he still intends to convince Olens to lower the $5 parking fee for drivers who park there short term. Certain decks, for instance, allow motorists to park for free for the first 30 minutes, Tumlin said. If drivers see that it's cheaper to park on the Square than it is in the deck, Tumlin fears the Square will continue to be congested.
Last year, Mayor Bill Dunaway and Councilman Philip Goldstein, along with city staff, were part of the negotiating team, meeting with the county to determine whether the city would lease space in the deck. Councilman Grif Chalfant called out Goldstein for negotiating on behalf of the city, given his family owns or controls a number of downtown parking spaces. Olens said Thursday that Goldstein was not invited to the meeting between him and Tumlin this time around.
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What on earth makes you think visitors to the Square do not use the current parking deck? Do you monitor it? Do you watch where people go after they park?
The first two floors are designated *public parking* -- Cobb County employees are forbidden to park in those spaces and those spots don't exactly sit empty. Visitors are most certainly using them. As a Cobb County employee who began work in Cobb in 2004, I waited 15 months for an assigned parking space in that deck and during much of that time I was forbidden to pay $3 as a *visitor* to park there. Why? Because the spaces had to remain available for visitors to Marietta Square. With the 2-hour visitor parking unavailble to me as well, I parked at the Public Library on Roswell Road and did quite a daily hike to my office building.
Visitors to the Square park illegally on a daily basis, using handicap spaces, courier parking spaces and unpatrolled juror parking lots. Cobb County employees (with the exception of a few rogue workers who refuse to follow rules) park where they're told, and pay out of their bi-weekly paychecks to do so.
Also, where exactly would you propose the County put in "off-street" parking lots for Cobb County government buildings? Do you see a lot of real estate available for that purpose? I don't.
Kudos to Cobb County for doing what the City of Marietta can not or will not do in providing additional parking for employees and visitors alike.
I'm forever grateful and proud of my employer.
Way to go Cobb County.
The City should build its own deck, either on the site of the current free lot, located just across the tracks on Mill St. or on the parking lot adjacent to the Baptist Church.
Further, if the County provided its own employees with off-street parking, there would be a lot more parking spaces available for the shopping public!