SLO City Council buys downtown lot for $4.8 million. What for?
Downtown San Luis Obispo is getting more public parking.
During its meeting Tuesday night, the San Luis Obispo City Council approved a plan to purchase a 21,607-square-foot property at 1166 Higuera St. and transform it into a paid public parking lot.
The property was previously slated to become an outdoor food court, but that proposal was more recently scrapped in favor of the city’s plan.
According to a city staff report, the lot would add 44 new paid parking spaces downtown, as well as additional ADA spaces. It would also require the city to demolish an existing structure on the property that has been deemed uninhabitable.
“Purchase and use of this property for public parking would facilitate greater access and economic development in the upper Monterey Street area, as contemplated in the Downtown Concept Plan and other City General Plan policies,” according to the staff report.
The property purchase will cost the city approximately $4.8 million, including $125,000 from the city’s coffers to pay for needed improvements to transform it into public parking. The purchase would be paid for via a loan from the city’s Infrastructure Investment Fund to its Parking Enterprise Fund.
Parking has been a hot-button issue for the city in recent months: Last week, the City Council voted to bring back some free parking at its structures after a heated meeting filled with comment from local business owners saying the city’s recent changes to parking were harming the downtown core.
The report for the City Council meeting added that the purchase of the Higuera Street property would provide more parking capacity in the downtown area and would “otherwise partially relieve any real or perceived challenges to both distribution and availability of parking spaces.”
The purchase is expected to close by the end of December.
This story was originally published November 17, 2023 at 10:00 AM.
%20Cropped.jpg)