Ottawa will work with downtown businesses to find parking spaces for their employees

The city of Ottawa will talk with representatives of each downtown business to figure out how many parking spaces are needed for their employees.

Parking spaces in city-owned lots, such as the lot near the YMCA (across Columbus Street from First United Methodist Church) or the lot at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Clinton streets then will be reserved for employees and business owners from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, when the Ottawa Police Department enforces parking restrictions, Ottawa Police Chief Brent Roalson said Thursday during a public meeting.

Roalson shared the city’s parking solutions and took feedback from those in attendance Thursday at City Hall. Several of the attendees had ideas to open up parking spaces for customers in Ottawa’s downtown.

Roalson’s explanation focused on C-4 commercial districts within the city’s downtown and ways to keep employees from using parking intended for customers.

The city’s parking designations will come at no cost to business owners, and would operate on a tag system to show whose spot belongs to whom.

“We don’t know the actual number of participants that we’re looking at,” Roalson said. “But this would address some of the issue.”

The three largest employers in downtown are First Federal Bank and First National Bank, along with the La Salle County Courthouse. Roalson said he has talked with La Salle County about moving its employee parking off of the street and into the lot across Main Street.

“What we have right now is a split program with some business owners being compliant, having their employees park away from their business and hopefully not in front of someone else’s business,” Roalson said. “Although, that does happen. If they park in the lot, they won’t have an issue. There are other employees that park in proximity to their business and receive citations.”

Roalson said the idea is to eliminate the citation process to get employees and employers off the street and into the parking lots, which would allow customers to use the street parking and get closer to businesses.

He also wants to revamp the parking validation system that’s in place. As it stands, Ottawa has had one parking validation since November.

Parking validation is a way for a customer to stay parked in their spot for longer than the three hours allotted as long as it’s approved by whichever business they are visiting. Part of that revamp is simply getting out the message it exists.

“I think using the Visitor Center can be a big part of getting the message out there and the Chamber of Commerce, so we can push that it exists out there,” Roalson said. “The program is still in existence, and we did get one recently from one of the hair salons. A young lady was issued a parking citation, but the business owner was able to resolve that, and the citation was dismissed.”

Caroline Wolf, the owner of Heartland by Hand, said the city needs to be careful with how it continues its parking enforcement.

“The parking ticket validation program may work for locals, but it could be counterproductive to people like tourists,” Wolf said.

Commissioner James Less pitched the idea parking enforcement could include a message on the bottom of parking tickets that remind downtown visitors the parking validation system exists as a way to keep it from going by the wayside.

Not everyone parking in the downtown is a customer or an employee, however: Attorney Alexis Ferracuti suggested having temporary registration for associate lawyers who visit the old La Salle County Courthouse, since often times they can be spending 6 to 7 hours in the courthouse.

Ideas and requests were shared from all angles during the meeting but Plan Commission member Brent Barron said the parking issues are a good problem.

“Most downtowns don’t have a parking problem because they don’t have a downtown anyone wants to go to,” Barron said. “ So, congratulations! We have a downtown that people want to come to.”

Many of the dozens in the room seemed to agree. Parking might be a pain, but Ottawa’s downtown sees a lot of people.