If your business plan requires 40,000 sqft of parking for your 5,000 sqft business then perhaps it is not a good fit for the dense downtown area. Maybe you should look out on 288 or I-35. I hear there is plenty of parking at the Mall. Development downtown needs to fit the character of downtown. Dense, walkable, with street life and activity. The best way to increase the value of downtown is with infill, 6-10 storefronts per block, no dead zones of pavement. A parking lot for every business would result in 1-2 businesses per block and a sea of concrete, the exact thing that would drive customers away.

If a developer wants to build a parking garage to provide parking options without wasting all of the real estate of downtown that is fine, but parking garages average $4,000 per stall in construction cost alone, a subsidy the taxpayers don’t need to foot in order to support a handful of businesses that don’t match the character of downtown.

Not only is there a public lot by Wellsfargo, but the lot at Mulberry/Carroll (across the street from where the small farmers market sets up) is HUGE with plenty of available spots. I would say it’s about a 3 minute walk from there to the square.

I also mention for people to check on the side streets such as Cedar, and further down Elm and Locust.

One last thing to mention, cyclists tend to look over the bike racks! The city has put many up on corners around the square, but instead of using them I still see bikes tied up to the parking signs a couple feet away. That being said, I feel there’s always space for bikes, and plentiful watchful eyes (like myself) incase there are some thiefs amongst the crowds.

Great write-up!

Less parking, more walkable streets – as Dan stated. Lets work on the walkability.