As a reaction to continued success of our Downtown and the upcoming College Avenue Improvements, Town Council appropriated money Tuesday Night to purchase an existing parking lot downtown. Below is the News Release issued yesterday by the town:
TOWN OF BLACKSBURG TO PURCHASE DOWNTOWN PARKING LOT
Blacksburg, Virginia, January 11, 2012 – Blacksburg Town Council has appropriated the funds to purchase an existing parking lot in downtown Blacksburg. The property is approximately 2/3 of an acre and located in the 300 Block of Progress Street, behind The Creekmore Law Firm building, formerly Raines Real Estate.
The Town and property owner have agreed upon a price of $650,000. The purchase of this property enables the Town to guarantee that current downtown parking spaces are not lost to redevelopment and consider long term options for how the property can best serve the parking needs in downtown.
The purchase is one of many recent public investments in the downtown area. It allows the Town to address both short term and long term goals by balancing the parking needs of the public, employees of downtown businesses, and downtown residents, while providing the potential for the future construction of additional parking facilities.
Current individual space leases will be extended through June 2012 to allow the Town ample time to develop a management plan for the parking lot. Public input and downtown merchant participation in this discussion will take place this spring.
How many parking spaces is this? Can you compare the amount of money spent on this with some other projects the town has down? I am having a real problem seeing the value here, other than providing parking for people going to bars.
On a similar thought, yesterday I realized the real retail center of Balcksburg is South Main. I stopped at three local businesses yesterday and bought bread, usb cables, and some candy, all at one shopping center. Certainly not the most attractive one in town, but they are selling stuff I want to buy.
Please encourage your colleagues on town council to provide the same level of support to the South Main area they already provide to the downtown area. Or maybe not, South Main seems to thrive in spite of Councils attempts to prevent new businesses from starting on South Main.
Philip,
Thanks for your comments. We are working very hard with many of the businesses on S. Main to help them thrive. Do you have specific examples of our attempts to “prevent new businesses from starting on South Main?”
There are many businesses downtown whose employees need a place to park. These are not all restaurants. Just look at some of the signs.
Thanks for reading and providing comments.
This is wonderful news for the downtown area. Thank you.
What about purchasing the property where the old HS stands? Or how about the derelict bank on main street?
Sorry, but I think you just wasted 650K!
Philip, I’m glad you had a satisfying shopping experience. It’s good to know that our citizens have shopping choices. Howevfer, I would like to point at that you could also purchase the three things you mentioned downtown. USB cable – Tech Bookstore; Bread – Bollos and Ceritanos; Candy – 7-11 and various other places.
So the South Main merchants aren’t a part of the Blacksburg community? It is A Bad Thing to patronize other places of business in the town limits if they aren’t downtown? Talk about elitism. I’ll give you that making the purchases at the 7-Eleven and Tech Bookstore would not be a hassle because they have their own parking lots, but buying the bread could be a challenge (except now without students) since parking downtown is a challenge, as it always has been. This parking lot purchase could be good if handled right or it could be another boondoggle like the Kent Square garage (has the town seen any payments on that yet?) if the spaces are only available to the public on a limited basis.
Please re-read my post. I sincerely think it’s a good thing that we all have shopping choices that suit us. I never inferred that South Main was not part of the Blacksburg community. Philip’s comment clearly states that ‘the real retail center of Blacksburg is South Main.” While I do shop at South Main occasionally, my point was that I can ALSO find things worth buying downtown. There is nothing elitists about that.
But my real point is that Council is pouring money and effort into Downtown at the expense of other parts of town. Never mind the active creation of roadblocks such as basically obstructing a big box store on one lot, then rubber stamping a big box on the adjacent property. Who is going to save the children from people selling alcohol now?
Anyway, the bookstore has a poor selection of overpriced computer stuff. PC Land rocks for my needs. Our Daily Bread is a kick ass bakery, and industrial candy from 7-11 pales to the foreign (likely industrial too
candy at Oasis 
Excellent! These spots typically sit completely empty because the previous owner had 24/7 towing in place. Opening up these spots to public use (either through meters or otherwise) will increase downtown pedestrian traffic and will over time pay for themselves through parking meters. Well done to Mayor Rordam and the Blacksburg Town Council for their forward thinking on this!
I have not walked over there yet, but I wonder how many spaces are in the lot. From the Google Maps Satellite view, it seems like there may only be 14 spaces or so, unless I’m looking at the wrong lot.
There are about seventy (70) spaces.
So, we get 70 extra spaces for $650,000.
Some one made a really good deal, and it wasn’t the people of Blacksburg.
Don’t know of many places in SW Virginia where property lots are sold at $1 million an acre?
So, I did a back of the envelope calculation and it looks like town code make %5 return on the money by renting the spaces at $500 per year. (Very roughly, not accounting for expenses).
From Ron’s comments, they are thinking about provide employee parking with those spaces. As long as Council passes the cost on the the businesses that chose to use the spaces, it is not a bad deal.
It’s a mere 9,285 bucks a space. What a deal for the people of Blacksburg.
I congratulate Council for making a deal on this property. Very forward looking for a change. And ever so much better than continuing to dump huge amounts of public money into that purple elephant, the Black house.
Thanks to the Town Council and especially Mayor Rordam for engaging residents in public forums like this. It’s interesting to see the varying opinions