After years of study, the city of Fargo has decided to spend $1.5 million to fix a deteriorating downtown parking ramp instead of building a new one.
Repairs will begin next spring on the US Bank parking ramp, Fargo Senior Planner Bob Stein told the city's Parking Commission on Thursday.
In June 2004, an engineering study recommended the ramp not be used for more than a year without major repairs. The spiral exit area - known as the helix - was shut down that summer because of extreme corrosion.
The city considered demolishing the 150-stall ramp and replacing it with a 300-stall ramp, but the $6 million price tag was deemed too expensive, Fargo Planning Director Jim Gilmour said.
Stein said the repairs will include replacing the helix, repairing or replacing some of the driving surfaces, possibly upgrading the lighting and improving the ramp's exterior.
ADVERTISEMENT
"If we're going to instill confidence in this structure for the people parking there, I think we have to make it look like a new ramp," he said.
Roughly $210,000 of the project cost will be covered through community development funds, parking fee reserves and a tax-increment financing district coming back on the tax rolls, Gilmour said. The balance will be financed with special assessment bonds, to be retired with parking fee revenue.
The repairs will be done in pieces and may inconvenience parkers for a few weeks at a time, Gilmour said.
In other business, the Parking Commission approved a recommendation to raise parking rates in city-owned lots.
The rates haven't changed in two years, and Stein said he wants to avoid the uproar that occurred when the city raised rates in 2001 after a decade of no increases.
Monthly rates will increase $1 in the Ground Transportation Center and bypass lots, $3 in the Civic Center lot and Radisson Hotel ramp and $10 in the Elm Tree lot.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Mike Nowatzki at (701) 241-5528
