Valpo makes deal for more downtown parking

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Updated: February 28, 2012 8:18AM

VALPARAISO — The city is adding 10 permit-only parking places downtown near the new Central Plaza Park.

The city is leasing 12 of the 22 parking spaces that Grace New Testament Church has at 155 Lafayette Street, south of the park.

Public Works Director Matt Evans told the Board of Works and Safety on Thursday that the city’s payment to lease these spaces from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, would be in the form of plowing the parking lot and doing maintenance and crack sealing.

Businesses in the area need the parking spaces, which are meant for those who’ve gotten permits to park downtown but found places limited or eliminated by a combination of the new park and the new city zoning

“It’s a good, short-term, quick answer to some of our challenges,” Evans said.

Rich Serletic of Certified Financial Group at 61 Indiana Ave. said, “It’s a good thing. We need those parking places.” The city exchanged the parking lot next to his business to Fifth Third Bank for the land that is now the north part of Central Plaza Park. “We paid for those permits, and they sold the parking lot,” Serletic said.

Brent Wagner, whose architecture firm at 54 Indiana Ave. is next to the new park, said this isn’t the first step the city has taken since he and others pointed out employees suddenly had no places to park. However, the permit parking behind the park stage and the combination three-hour parking and permit parking tends to fill up when the park gets used. “I’m glad they addressed this now before the summer hits,” Wagner said.

In other business, the board accepted a $129,415 Public Mass Transportation Fund grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation.

The money will go toward daily operations of both the ChicaGo Dash buses and the V-Line buses that serve the city, Transportation Director Tyler Kent said.