‘We need parking desperately:’ Parking deck coming to downtown Roswell

ROSWELL, Ga. — A public parking deck is coming to Roswell, something business owners and visitors say is long overdue for a downtown where parking can be a hassle.

The Roswell City Council voted unanimously to build the deck on a wedge of land between Green Street and Highway 9.

“Great idea, we need parking desperately,” Bilhiar Ghuman, who owns Alpharetta Street Bottle Shop across the street from the site, told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims.

He said he struggles with people parking in his private lot, especially on weekends and during special events.

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“We have people just leave their cars in our customer parking area and then two or three hours come back,” Ghuman said.

The $20 million project will include pedestrian plazas and street improvements and is expected to take about two and a half years to complete.

The site is a block east of Canton Street, a bustling corridor lined with restaurants and shops.

Melissa Hemans works at a clothing boutique on Canton Street called Spirited.

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“It’s always the talk of the town – where do we park?” Hemans said. “We’d come to Roswell more often for dinner, but then there’s the parking problem.”

It’s unclear how many spaces the deck will include and whether the parking will be free.

The city council’s vote for the deck comes nearly a year after Mayor Kurt Wilson proposed shutting down a stretch of Canton Street to vehicular traffic and making it a promenade.

That riled some business owners who said their sales would suffer. One of their arguments was that downtown lacked adequate parking, and shutting down the street would make the problem worse.

The idea to close Canton Street is on hold until an urban planning study is done.

Ghuman said a parking deck would make the business community more receptive to a street closure. “That’s why they need to put that in place first – the new parking deck – before they do anything on closing off Canton Street.”

Jodi Davis, visiting Roswell from Wisconsin, had to change her lunch plans and eat at a different restaurant because of the parking.

“It was a little difficult,” she said. “We had to drive up and down a few times before we were able to find somewhere to park.”

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