As Erie Bank gears up to establish a banking presence in downtown Meadville, city officials are confident that the sale of a portion of the city’s Park Avenue Central Lot containing 54 metered parking spaces is a winning solution to a long-term problem.

Erie Bank is gaining prime real estate along Park Avenue consisting of six tax parcels. Five of those parcels, which had been owned by the city, combined to form the parking lot. They were purchased from Meadville Redevelopment Authority for $270,000. The sixth, home of the former Yonts Building, was purchased from Thomas Callen for $130,000.

For the City of Meadville, Crawford County and Crawford Central School District, simply getting the parking lots back on the tax rolls will have an immediate impact.

According to county tax assessor Joe Galbo III, the five parcels formerly owned by the city have a combined assessed value of $68,750 in their current state.

Based on current assessments and property tax rates — 18.1 mills for county, 20.92 mills for city and 44.88 mills for school district — simply returning the properties to the tax rolls means that the three taxing bodies would receive property taxes totaling $5,768.13 in 2010. That’s $1,244.38, $1,438.25, and $3,085.50 respectively. That’s before improvements — including improvements to the property now occupied by the Yonts building. At the present time, by the way, that property is assessed at $43,200.

In addition, new employees working in the city would also generate additional income for city coffers.

According to Galbo, properties are not reassessed until improvements are complete. If the new banking facility opens as planned in the spring of 2010, for example, the new assessed value would be reflected in taxes for 2011.

Ironically, the taxes the city will receive even if the property remains unimproved is probably more than the net income it might expect to earn annually in the form of meter revenue from the site, according to an appraisal conducted before the sale took place. According to the appraiser, the approximately $5,500 per year the city has collected in meter revenue during the past four-year period “is barely adequate to pay for the annual expenses of cleaning, plowing, meter repair, paving repairs and liability insurance,” which come in between $4,000 to $5,000 per year.

According to the appraisal, “converting the subject site to a more profitable leased lot is possible with little cost other than to remove the existing meters.”

Income would be a bit better, but that’s still not the best the city could do. According to the appraisal, “this use is also not the highest and best use when compared to its value for commercial development.”

That observation, City Manager Joe Chriest noted, is consistent with the recommendation contained in the city’s downtown action plan that the parking lot be sold.

“In conclusion,” the appraisal reads, “the highest and best use of the subject is for commercial development with parking or assemblage with adjoining properties for commercial development.”



Where would

they park?

For downtown merchants, the availability of metered parking is an ongoing cause for concern, even though a number of studies have indicated that the city has more than ample parking to meet its downtown needs.

In fact, spot checks of the lot in question indicate that metered spaces in both the lot and its immediate vicinity are underutilized during the day. In the middle of a recent Wednesday afternoon, for example, 33 of the 54 spaces were empty, as were three of the five meters in the upper lot, nine metered spaces along Park Avenue and three metered spaces across from the lot on West Center Street.

During a recent Meadville City Council study session, Dave Stone, owner of Mickey’s Central Fire Station Restaurant and Lounge, which is directly across West Center from the metered lot, said he was primarily concerned about what will happen during the bank’s construction phase — and where his customers will park on Fridays between late afternoon and 6 p.m., when almost all the city’s reserved spaces become available for public use.

“If we sit down and work this thing out, it’s got great potential,” Stone said.

Chriest already has a couple of ideas in mind. If Erie Bank proceeds with plans to have vehicles enter the property from West Cherry Street and exit onto West Center, for example, the city is prepared to add six to seven spaces along Park Avenue in front of the new bank, he said.

A number of reserved spaces in the remaining section of the lot could also be converted to metered parking. As of July 1, for example, the city expects 11 of the lot’s 78 reserved spaces to be unrented.

The city is also considering converting approximately seven of the dozen or so metered spaces in the Keystone View lot at the corner of Market and West Cherry streets. “We could offer them to people now holding reserved spaces in the central lot,” Chriest said. “That would allow us to put additional metered spaces in the central lot.”



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.