COLUMBIA, MO. -- UPDATE:
The Columbia City Council has approved construction of a new parking garage on Short Street.
ORIGINAL STORY:
People in Columbia have a chance to give their input on another parking garage project.
City leaders want to spend more than $9 million on a garage near the proposed site of a new Doubletree Hotel in Downtown Columbia.
The city’s proposal calls for more than 300 spaces in the garage.
Plans would keep Short Street open between Walnut Street and Broadway by allowing Short Street to cut through the structure.
City leaders said they need the additional parking for the new hotel, a student housing project and area businesses.
Mayor Bob McDavid said city leaders will not make the same mistakes they did when building the Walnut Street Parking Garage that opened earlier this year.
McDavid said, “We’re under negotiations with a couple of groups who want to put commercial development on the site of the parking garage, both office and some residential. The commercial development avoids what some people call dead space near a parking garage where you just have a street and an empty wall. It creates some vitality for the area.”
McDavid is optimistic that the city council will approve the Short Street Parking Garage project at tonight’s meeting beginning at 7 p.m.
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