by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
The parking garage bordering Main and Monroe streets may get a face lift if representatives from the Police and Fire Pension Fund get their way.
The pension fund owns and operates the garage and Administrator John Keane said some internal maintenance and facade repairs are “desperately needed.”
“This garage was built in 1986,” he said. “Since then, there has been very little serious maintenance work done. This is a real estate investment for the pension fund and we have a responsibility to take care of it. It just looks tired and we want to gussy it up a bit and make it more of a contemporary to the other buildings in the area.”
Aside from standard repairs and door replacements, Keane said there has been an additional push to make structural improvements after a portion of the old Roosevelt Hotel was demolished last month as part of The Carlington loft project, leaving the west wall of the garage exposed to wind and precipitation.
“We’re starting to see a lot of water damage now because of that,” he said. “There is nothing to prevent water from seeping in and we want to get it fixed before it gets to be a serious problem. We need to refinish the building.”
Keane said it made even more sense to get started while Monroe Street remains partially blocked by construction crews working on The Carlington and Main Library projects.
“We want to move quickly and we would obviously coordinate with Vestcor [who is developing The Carlington] in every way possible,” he said. “We could be done in less than six months.”
Keane originally hoped the City Council’s Finance Committee would approve the additional $500,000 needed to move forward with the renovations. However, at Monday’s budget review hearing, Council auditor Richard Wallace and Finance chair Warren Alvarez said other revenue streams, including City-issued facade grants might be pursued instead.
“That garage is an earning asset for the pension fund,” said Wallace. “If there is a need to make structural repairs, we may revisit that, but they are operating on an $150 million deficit and we didn’t think facade improvements are a priority right now.”
Alvarez agreed, saying Keane was trying to be too “fancy” and the item was deferred until it can be revisited by the Council.
“We didn’t think it was too much to ask and we certainly didn’t think it was a big deal,” said Keane of the $500,000 request. “What we want to do is really nothing fancy or extravagant. We just want to look decent while the rest of the block is given a complete overhaul. We don’t want to be left behind.”
Keane later criticized the City, saying it was inconsistent for them to “pour millions and millions of dollars into other projects such as the [county courthouse] and [the Main library] and not want to help us improve. They could defer it, but I think it would be out of line with what they say they want to do to the downtown area.”
But Keane said the budget hearing wasn’t a total loss.
“We’re happy to pursue whatever City funds they’d like us to,” he said. “We’re working on the paperwork now. After we get our bids, we could have some designs by the end of September. We’ll start talking more seriously about it then.”