Sandpoint Council approves $434K contract for parking lot improvements

SANDPOINT — After a decade of postponement, the public parking lot at Church Street and Third Avenue will receive new asphalt and other improvements in the coming weeks. 

Sandpoint City councilors gave the project the final go-ahead when they voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a $434,085 contract with Wink, Inc. Construction will start next week; the lot will be closed to the public until the work is completed May 9. 

In a February City Council meeting, Mayor Jeremy Grimm said the initiative to resurface the lot has been budgeted and put off every year since 2014. When councilors were asked to approve a preliminary design, concerns about traffic efficiency and tree removal caused the officials to be split on the topic, but a tiebreaking vote from Grimm moved the project forward. 

Improvements at the lot will include new pavement, dark sky-compliant streetlights, expanded ADA access and improved stormwater treatment infrastructure. 

The existing entrances on Church and Oak streets will be removed and replaced with a single entrance facing South Fork Hardware on Third Avenue to create a layout city engineer Brandon Staglund said will improve safety. 

The new configuration will shrink the total number of parking spaces from 127 to 119, but will bring the lot into compliance with parking stall size requirements outlined in City Code and protect some of the existing trees on the property. 

Construction will occur 7 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays. Oak Street, Third Avenue and Church Street may experience temporary closures during the construction, but project manager Erik Bush told attendees of the Wednesday meeting that he didn’t expect more than one road to be closed at a time. 

Bush also said that the city will temporarily lift time limits for downtown on-street parking stalls that typically restrict visitors to three- or four-hour stays in an effort to accommodate residents and visitors displaced from the lot. 

While parking at the lot will remain free after the construction is completed, city staff are continuing to refine a parking management plan that proposes to introduce fees at city-owned lots downtown. 

When asked by Councilor Kyle Schreiber about the future of the Church and Third parking lot property and the possibility of an eventual parking garage at the site, Grimm told councilors he believes Sandpoint will need a parking structure “at some point,” but that based on the city’s current unaddressed needs, an initiative to build a city-owned garage in the coming years is unlikely.

    The improved parking lot will include new pavement, dark sky-compliant streetlights, expanded ADA access and improved stormwater treatment infrastructure.