LEWES, Del. - After years of discussions and city meetings, a meter will be installed on the corner of Third Street and Market Street and people will be able to park in the public metered spaces behind M&T Bank for $1 an hour.
In just a couple of months, eleven parking spots behind M&T Bank will be open to the public. Hotel Rodney will keep four spaces. The bank will keep eighteen, but those spaces will become metered when it is closed.
"The Downtown Parking Committee approved the idea that we would not do any structural changes to the lot, so there will be seal-coating to the lot, re-striping the lot," says Mayor Ted Becker.
Becker says the $20,000 project should pay for itself during the two-year lease the city has with the bank.
"There was a talk about putting a garage there," Becker says. "The space is very tight and the bank isn't really interested in selling the property or developing a building there and it's a huge expense to develop any parking structure, so this is a good step."
Nectar Cafe & Juice Bar server Alex Nikanovich has watched his customers circle Second Street for a parking spot for seven years. He's expecting a busy summer, since COVID-19 kept many people at home last year, and says the new public parking spaces will make space for more customers.
"It will let them spend less time to find a parking spot and more time to enjoy local businesses, our restaurant, and they don't have to walk that far," Nikanovich says.
Coleen Dowd of Lewes worries alleviating the search for a space will create congestion in what she says is a walkable town.
"I like it just the way it is," Dowd says. "I like the idea of people taking the bus into town, using the bike path."
"It's a trial situation," Becker says. "We're both going into this seeing how it works for the bank and for us and at the end of two years, we'll sit down and talk about going forward, hopefully for a much longer term."
Becker says the goal is to have the lot open to the public by the start of meter season on May 1st. He says the city and the bank will meet again at the end of the two-year lease to decide if it can continue to be a public parking option.