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Near the end of last Monday night's meeting, the Marshalltown city council returned to two previously discussed topics for further consideration -- downtown parking and lot leases and the potential sale of properties currently owned by the city to private individuals for business and/or residential development.
On the former, Public Works Director Heather Thomas recapped a discussion from September and noted that a business owner was interested in leasing parking stalls in a downtown lot. From there, it morphed into a larger conversation about the current city ordinance, which prohibits a vehicle from being parked in a city-owned lot for more than 12 hours at a time, being too restrictive. The consensus at the time was increasing the limit from 12 hours to 72 hours.
"I think that addresses some of the concerns if somebody went out of town for an evening or a weekend and some of those items from a downtown living perspective," Thomas said.
The current ordinance also prohibits overnight parking in lots, and Thomas said the consensus was to change it for all city-owned lots except four: the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the library, the City Hall and Carnegie lot, and the Farmer's Market. She went on to explain that in the past, the restriction on overnight parking allowed for maintenance of the lots, citing sweeping, pavement marking, filling potholes and more.
As it stands now, the ordinance also includes certain restrictions during snow removal operations from 2 a.m to 7 a.m., which Thomas described as "a little complicated." She added that it got more complicated after the tornado when some of the signs disappeared.
"Because we knew we had more downtown housing coming onboard, those signs have not been replaced, and there has been limited enforcement on our current parking regulations," Thomas said.
To accommodate maintenance and snow removal, Thomas said there have been discussions about using the snow emergency alert notification system to include both in the future, and she would communicate with downtown landlords and tenants to ensure they are aware when the situations occur. Another idea was "sistering" nearby parking lots and alternating the nights when parking is allowed in each one to make sure maintenance can be performed.
In response to a question from Councilor Greg Nichols on the percentage of leased vs. open lots, Thomas said her recommendation was to discontinue all existing leases as there is only one "hard lease" currently in place in a parking lot on East State Street, but the business has discontinued it while the other half is currently being leased by the owners of an adjacent building.
Councilor Jeff Schneider said he felt the moves were "a positive change."
"It's about time we allowed some overnight parking in our city lots," he said.
With no further discussion, Thomas told Mayor Pro Tem Mike Ladehoff she would bring back an ordinance change for the council to review and potentially approve. She also said she could explore the possibility of leasing stalls but wasn't aware of any official interest at the present time.
Without any official action or recommendation, the council then moved to another discussion item about selling several city-owned properties, with City Administrator Joe Gaa remarking that he was surprised to learn how many lots they currently hold.
"We own a lot of lots, so we've been very aggressive in taking down some structures and then we have those lots left over," Gaa said.
In a memo attached to the meeting packet, he proposed selling a total of 11 properties -- nine residential, one industrial and one commercial -- over two rounds of sealed bidding. The first six, which Gaa called round one, have drawn some interest so far, while the second round properties have not generated the same level of interest.
Under the proposed timeline, requests for sealed bids and marketing were set to commence yet last week, and they would be due by Jan. 4. From there, a public hearing could be set at the Jan. 8 meeting, and the sales could be approved as soon as Jan. 22. The second round would start in January and potentially wrap up by February.
He also zeroed in on a specific downtown commercial property the city currently owns at 20 E. Main St., and Gaa said the city would need to put out requests for proposals (RFPs) on how it would be used.
"I think we'll get some interest -- again, we've had several calls -- but we'll probably be able to narrow it down to which ones are maybe worth moving on," he said. "There's gonna have to be some due diligence, period, in there. We'll get some proposals that we'll probably bring to you and ask for permission and continue to work with these and then bring some final proposals and plans later on... We wanna do this right. We wanna see retail increase downtown."
The deadline for submitting bids on that property is Feb. 1, 2024, at 10 a.m. Councilor Gary Thompson asked Gaa if the 11 lots encompassed all of the city's current holdings, and he responded that it included the bulk of the vacant lots they currently owned but probably not all of it.
Thompson also suggested that the city "bite the bullet" and pay for the lead and asbestos abatement at 20 E. Main St. because it could create a cost prohibitive situation for anyone considering buying it. He hoped arrangements could be made with the neighboring building owners to allow access to the upstairs of the building for tours with prospective buyers.
Councilor Gabe Isom agreed with Thompson's idea of performing lead and asbestos abatement.
"I think the more hurdles we can remove from an investor's standpoint and new business owners or somebody else... I don't know what that looks like in dollars, which is obviously where the conversation will end up, but I think that's worth the effort," Isom said.
Gaa said the building will likely have to be demolished and rebuilt, which would likely include that type of work anyway, but he would bring back some cost estimates before any further action is taken.
Right now, the building is boarded up except for an entry through a loading dock door up some stairs in the Clapsaddle Garber Associates building. Gaa has a meeting set up with CGA Owner Matt Garber, who he described as "willing to work with us," this week to figure out what he needs to know ahead of time.
Ladehoff called the matters "two different issues" and said everyone was in agreement about putting the 11 lots out for bid, but he would wait for Gaa to provide more details and a final draft on the RFP for 20 E. Main St. to help the council make "an informed decision."
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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.