New garage in Bel Air could solve parking crunch

“We need the parking desperately at this point in time,” said Planning Director Carol Deibel.

“If we want to continue the redevelopment we see happening, we need that additional parking.”

She said the town is working to create a four-story garage at the corner of South Bond Street and East Churchville Road through a public-private partnership between the government and downtown business owners.

The town would use about 200 of the spaces for government use, and others could be leased, she said.

“We have waiting lists for every one of our existing lots,” Deibel said.

Bel Air Mayor Robert Preston said the town could fund its share by borrowing the money, then repay it by leasing parking spaces in the new garage.

Deibel said she could not specify which businesses would be in the partnership because it was still being negotiated. No cost estimates are available.

The garage may take years before construction begins, but Preston said he was confident the demand for downtown parking would remain high. The nearly complete Main Street repaving and sidewalk realignment would add to it, he said.

“When we get our traffic back on Main Street, I think it will be an attractive area for new business,” he said.

But the project depends on the county declaring three old offices it owns on South Courtland Street as “surplus,” so private developers could buy them and the town can remove part of one for the parking garage, Preston said.

This past week, the County Council voted against releasing the properties out of fear that no one would want to spend money to update the historic buildings.

County Councilman James McMahan, who represents Bel Air, said the council would be more amenable to declaring the buildings as surplus if they were part of the garage project.

msantoni@baltimoreexaminer.com