A large private lot along Eighth Street that until recently served as an informal public parking lot may eventually be leased by the city for that purpose, providing a parking boost to an increasingly busy corridor.

Blarney Castle Oil owns the roughly half-acre space on the south side of Eighth Street at Wellington. Company representatives have allowed people to park there for some time, and the lot grew busy in recent years with the opening of the mixed-use Commongrounds Cooperative about 50 yards to the west.

But city officials, citing zoning rules, recently shut this de facto public lot down. The space is now cordoned off, with several signs indicating that parking is not allowed.

“That district doesn't allow for private surface lots with parking as the principal use. As an accessory to a building use, it's fine, but not as the principal,” City Planning Director Shawn Winter tells The Ticker. “So eventually we had to…stop that.”

Not long after the lot was closed, leadership at Commongrounds approached the property owner and then the city about finding a long-term solution to the lot. Although discussions are preliminary, the current thinking is that the city would lease the lot from Blarney Castle, adding to several other privately owned lots that the city leases for parking.

“Even though private standalone surface lots are not allowed, public ones are,” Winter says. “So we started exploring that with the owner of that lot and representation from Commongrounds to see if there’s a path forward where we could get a lot constructed that the city would lease and operate.”

While Commongrounds is an increasingly busy attraction in the Eighth Street corridor, it would be far from the only operation to benefit from a new lot there, Winter says.

“As we get more residential in that area and more commercial activity, there's more desire for people to be there,” he says. “And we strongly value being a walkable community, but the reality is we don't have the density yet where our businesses can solely rely on a walkable market. So people have to get into town, park and walk, and we need a place for them to land, and that's kind of what we're envisioning with this.”

Early conceptual designs show a lot with around 60 spaces that would be a mixture of permits and meters. No one involved, however, is particularly pumped about a simple surface lot. Covered parking for bikes, wayfinding signage, trees, a bike repair station and more could be components of any final design.

“We really would like this to be more of a mobility hub for different modes of transportation to intersect,” Winter says.

Paid parking would be a way for the city to cover costs and ensure that spaces turn over. Parking officials are fond of pointing out that “free” parking can often mean no or severely reduced parking, as spots without meters are often filled for very long periods by workers or visitors.

“If it’s free and convenient, you’re just going to leave your car there (indefinitely),” city Parking and Mobility Director Nicole VanNess tells The Ticker.

Meghan McDermott is executive director of Commongrounds, which has residences, offices, coworking space, a Montessori school, a performance arts venue (The Alluvion) and a coffee shop (NoBo). NoBo is planning to move its coffee operations to another spot in the building and begin offering lunch in its sizable current space, and McDermott says that could really create a parking pinch.

“The volume issue comes in when you’re talking about a 3,000 square foot restaurant space that’s trying to do a full lunch service,” McDermott tells The Ticker. “And when you’re in a market where everybody is used to rock star parking right out front of the building, that can be really hard.”

People who visit Commongrounds by vehicle were until 2023 able to park in the large lot nearly across the street at the Governmental Center, which McDermott says was “one of the things that made the concept of a restaurant in Commongrounds viable.”

But that lot is now permit only for city and county employees during the day time, in no small part due to increased use from Commongrounds visitors, Grand Traverse County Administrator Nate Alger tells The Ticker.

“We love the fact that Commongrounds and the bank have really started to revitalize that corridor, it’s just that we need to protect our assets for our employees and make sure they have a place to park,” Alger says.

McDermott stresses that Commongrounds initiated conversations with the city as an “ambassador” for all businesses and stakeholders in the Eighth Street corridor, and that (like Winter) she hopes for a “multimodal mobility hub” instead of a mere surface lot, which would be more fitting with earlier visioning sessions that called for a corridor that supports walkers, bikers and other non-motorized transportation. 

And while she is a very strong proponent of smart commuting, McDermott is also realistic about the need for parking.

“Commongrounds is committed to the vision for 8th Street as a walkable, bikeable corridor, but we also want all of the businesses there to be vibrant and thriving, and we know that part of that is creating the public infrastructure that allows those businesses to thrive,” she says.

Due to funding and approval processes, a city-run lot at that location (if it were to materialize) is likely a few years off.