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Last updated on Tuesday, February 7, 2017
(BLOOMINGTON) - A downtown parking garage for Monroe County employees is tentatively scheduled to open at the end of the month.
The Herald Times (heraldtimesonline.com) reports the $9.3 million, 240-plus parking garage will also be used as a secure evacuation site for county jail inmates. Solar panels installed on the garage will offset some utility expenses.
Funding for the garage has been controversial. Normally a project like this would be financed through bonding, but the garage is being paid for out of the county's cumulative capital development fund. Payments from the fund are projected to continue for the next 20-25 years. Officials say by using this fund, there are no additional taxes created to pay for the project.The cumulative capital fund has a tax rate associated with it.
The county's downtown parking garage will bring with it some changes to traffic patterns in the area once the facility opens.
There is a temporary order that will convert a current one-way, eastbound section of Eighth Street into a two-way route between College Avenue and Morton Street.
The entrance of the garage will be on Eighth Street.
Other changes the city's traffic commission has temporarily authorized include removing two parking spaces along the west side of College Avenue just north of Eighth Street to help with line of sight for drivers, and installing a stop sign for drivers traveling west on Eighth Street to stop for Morton Street traffic.
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