by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
A deal between the City and the Jacksonville Bar Association should ease for members the early morning parking panic around the Duval County Courthouse.
The agreement opens up the City’s (Landing) parking lot to JBA members from 8 a.m.-noon on weekdays. The lot typically doesn’t open until 9:15 a.m. Users must still pay normal rates, but the early opening should give attorneys with morning business at the courthouse an alternative when the courthouse lot and surrounding on-street spaces fill up, said JBA President Alan Pickert.
The use of the Landing lot was conceived by Pickert as a solution to the near daily parking shortfalls around the courthouse created by attorneys lining up for ex parte hours. Judges open their courts during ex parte hours, allowing attorneys to work through procedural or administrative matters on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Judges set their own ex parte schedules, but the sessions usually last an hour and are typically set for the morning. A single session can draw as many as a dozen attorneys, stretching an already thin inventory of parking around the courthouse.
“It’s not unusual to walk into a courtroom and find 10 other legal matters ahead of you,” said Pickert. “The JBA recognized a need here, and that’s what led us to get on the phones and work on it.”
Pickert said the grumbling from JBA members about the lack of parking around the courthouse was growing to a din. He got personally involved in the negotiations over the City lot after fielding an angry phone call from one attorney who spent 40 minutes circling the streets around the courthouse in a fruitless search for a space.
“He missed ex parte hours completely,” said Pickert.
The City keeps the lot closed until 9:15 a.m. to prevent morning commuters from taking up spaces designated for the Landing’s lunch business. Landing spokesperson Rachel Kaltenbach expressed concern that the arrangement with the JBA could aggravate the mall’s well-known parking problems. Almost since the day he took over the Landing in 2003, owner Toney Sleiman has haggled with the mayor’s office over trying to get the City to fulfill its parking obligations to the mall.
But Pickert said the JBA parking arrangement shouldn’t take away spaces from Landing customers. Ex parte hours typically close before the lunch rush starts, he said, and only JBA members will have the early-morning access.
“I don’t think it will be a problem so long as it’s not abused,” he said.