Here is some good news in the saga of two new downtown parking decks.

According to Greensboro Department of Transportation Director Hanna Cockburn, the Bellemeade Deck – across the street from First National Bank Field home of the Greensboro Grasshoppers – will be open for use maybe as early as next week.

Cockburn said the deck would open as soon as the city had the certificate of occupancy (CO) and “We hope to have the CO in the next week or so.”

She later said that it would certainly be open “in the next couple of weeks.”

Cockburn said that there were still a few punch list items that had to be completed before the CO could be issued.

And the deck will be free for probably the first month to six weeks of operation.

Cockburn said, “There have been delays related to parking operations equipment due to supply chain problems.”

She said that some of those problems were due to the pandemic, but that they were completely out of the hands of Greensboro.  In plain English that means Greensboro is waiting for the equipment to be delivered and can’t do anything to speed it up.

She said, “We anticipate having all the equipment before the end of March.”

But what that means for parkers is that until that equipment arrives and can be installed, parking in the brand new Bellemeade Parking deck will be free.

Cockburn said that the city didn’t want to have a new parking deck sitting unused for weeks, so the decision was made to open it to the public as soon as the CO was issued and then install the parking operations equipment when it arrives and the gates are operational.

She said that there was a lot of interest in the new deck with downtown businesses contacting the city about relocating existing parking agreements and starting new parking agreements.

 

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