City Council amended a contract with parking consultant Carl Walker Inc. during its Sept. 27 meeting.

The consulting firm completed the city’s Downtown Parking Study, which was adopted by council in September 2015 and included an inventory of parking spaces in the downtown overlay district.

Carl Walker had also been contracted to develop conceptual designs for a city-owned parking structure in downtown and had begun working on site assessments, said Jack Daly, assistant to the city manager.

However, the city will no longer pursue building a parking structure, Daly said.

“Based on council’s feedback as well as internal staff discussions, we felt that these efforts would be better redirected to create more actionable plans to better utilize existing parking in the downtown, better direct pedestrians and vehicles to existing parking as well as assist staff with any site plan or plan review of any proposed parking structures in the downtown,” he said.

Instead, Daly said Carl Walker will focus on enhancing existing parking and assess private-sector proposals for parking structures.

According to city documents, city staff has had interest from the private sector to partner in building a parking structure. Daly said Carl Walker will also help assess any possible public-private partnership opportunities.