Milton council decides on plans for Magnolia Street parking lot

Milton Town Council has selected two designs for a new parking lot on Magnolia Street, with details to be sorted by town staff prior to going to bid.

At its June 12 workshop meeting, council agreed the plans should include a sidewalk and the size of parking spaces should be 9-by-18 feet. The vote on the two plans passed unanimously, while the size of parking spaces passed by a 4-2 vote, with council members Randi Meredith and Robert Gray voting no.

The workshop was an idea of Town Manager Kristy Rogers to enable council to hash out a vision for the parking lot after council members could not agree on two plans submitted for the lot. Rogers said her goal for the workshop was to get council to figure out a design. 

The town acquired the land adjacent to the Lydia Cannon Museum by entering into a 10-year lease with Milton Historical Society to use the vacant lot for more parking. Under terms of the lease, the town will pay $36,000 annually over the life of the lease. It also has an option to extend the lease five years. Payments are due by June 10 every year. The town will be responsible for installing the parking lot. In the past, the historical society had been reluctant to use that land for permanent parking, as the lot has had flooding problems. The town will also install signs for the lot. The town has commitments from local state legislators for $120,000 toward the cost of improvements at the lot.

Rogers said while time is of the essence, she wanted to ensure that a good design was selected before moving forward. At the June 12 workshop, council was presented with five plans and selected two, both of which contained a sidewalk. The first chosen design has 39 parking spaces, while the second has 49 spaces. The entrance and exit to the parking lot would be on Magnolia Street.

While nothing has been decided, Rogers and Councilman Scotty Edler said the town would probably have to make Magnolia Street a one-way road to make traffic and pedestrian flow around the parking lot move better. 

Consideration of a sidewalk started when engineer Sharon Cruz first presented plans for the parking lot in May. Cruz’s first plan did not include a sidewalk, in an effort to maximize the number of spaces. However, Meredith led the charge for including a sidewalk, both to improve walkability and because the town now has control of the entire block of Magnolia Street and it should have a sidewalk on both sides. Plans were revised to include a sidewalk that would connect the parking lot to Union Street and the crosswalk to cross Magnolia Street. 

Council’s last point of disagreement was the size of the parking spaces. Town code mandates a 10-by-22-foot parking space, but plans for the Magnolia Street lot show 9-by-18 spaces to maximize the number of spots. Mayor John Collier said town code states council can bypass requirements. 

After deciding on the sidewalk and the space sizes, council then voted unanimously to give Rogers the authority to work on reconciling the two plans and preparing for bid.