At a meeting on Tuesday, March 26, the Clarkdale Town Council unanimously voted to apply for a Rural Business Development Grant from the US Department of Agriculture, in order to improve parking conditions in downtown Clarkdale.
At that meeting, Clarkdale Public Works Director Maher Hazine presented the town council with options for parking expansion. In budget discussions for the coming year, the Clarkdale council had discussed how crowded the area tends to get on the occasion of events downtown and concerns from some potential businesses about developing the area without what they felt was adequate parking.
Hazine presented options for adding up to 168 parking spaces to the downtown, mostly through road- side parking. He proposed utilizing undeveloped space at the triangular intersection of Clarkdale Parkway, 1st South Street and Sunset Boulevard for a slew of spaces, as well as adding spaces along Main Street and other
roads through the downtown.
A proposal to add diagonal spaces to Main Street, which would allow for the most cars to be fit in the space, was nixed by the council, due to its potential to force the major artery through town into one-way traffic status.
“I feel like that one-way stretch on that two-block area would probably deter more people than it bring in,” Councilman Scott Buckley said at the meeting. “I see that one-way street being an issue for not only my business but every other business on Main Street.”
With the council rejecting the option of diagonal parking leading to a one-way stretch on Main Street out of hand, that left a slightly more modest proposal of 156 new parking spaces, as proposed by Hazine.
That proposal was not officially decided on at the meeting either, with the council instead only taking the more tentative step of applying for the USDA grant in the hopes of being able to use the funding from the federal government to implement whatever parking plan they end up deciding on in the future.
The grant would provide up to $30,000 for Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant spaces and pathways, as well as new signage and pavement striping. The funds would be awarded on Sept. 1 and must be used within 12 months.
“This is like in the no-brainer category,” Clarkdale Mayor Doug Von Gausig said. The council laughed and unanimously approved the grant submission.
