Every five years, McKinney’s Planning Department conducts a study of parking in the downtown area to evaluate how parking serves visitors, employees and businesses, according to the city’s website. The study was last updated in 2019, and staff completed a Parking Action Plan in 2021.
The overview
The new study is coming after city staff have completely moved out of the downtown area and into the new City Hall, said Cassie Bumgarner, downtown development and preservation planning manager. Bumgarner presented an update on downtown parking during an Oct. 21 McKinney City Council work session.
“The gap between the last parking study and this parking study, we felt was pertinent to wait for that full transition for city staff to move out of downtown over to across [SH 5] since that does open up quite a bit of public parking and change the parking 'scape out there,” she said.
City staff are also expecting to conduct a feasibility study in the spring for a new parking garage at the corner of Hunt and Kentucky streets, according to a staff presentation. The parking garage could address an anticipated increase in parking capacity needed for downtown redevelopment, Bumgarner said.
In the meantime, staff are revisiting goals from the 2021 parking action plan such as evaluating further options for expanding transportation mode alternatives and considering implementation of paid parking areas.
“These are just prioritized goals that we hope to further explore in the coming year,” Bumgarner said.
The background
The parking action plan included several recommendations for improving wayfinding, parking demand management and enforcement. City officials have already completed some of the plan’s recommendations like installing new wayfinding signs and opening a downtown trolley service.
More information about where to park in downtown McKinney can be found on the city’s website.
What they’re saying
Council member Patrick Cloutier said he doesn’t see any opportunities to increase parking supply on the south side of the square. That area has a lot of restaurants that are important partners on the square, he said.
“The way I see it is that we have an abundance of parking on the north end of town,” Cloutier said. “Now that the city employees have left, that will be mitigated a little bit when we start construction on the parking garage at Hunt Street and relocating Central Park.”
Cloutier asked if city officials can explore limiting parking to three hours in the first few floors of the proposed parking garage.
“Those get filled up first,” he said. “I’d like to see that.”
Council member Geré Feltus said she wants officials to do the best they can in educating downtown businesses about the city’s new wayfinding signs and the trolley.
“[Cloutier] and I got a chance to meet with a few of the restaurant business owners on that south end of the square and they seem to be largely unaware of all of the things to help their patrons get to their location,” Feltus said.
Providing education on the reality of downtown parking could be useful, but the business owners weren’t aware of the wayfinding signs or the uses of the trolley, she said.
“I just want to make sure that we’re doing the best we can to educate that group as well,” she said.
