Downtown Jacksonville gets new parking, costs you $3.5 mil

The SunTrust building in downtown Jacksonville is one of the only buildings without its own parking.  That will soon change.

City Council on Tuesday approved a deal that would provide the owners of the building, Parador Partners with a $3.5 million grant to build a new parking garage on Hogan in between Bay and Water Streets.

The new garage would have upwards of 500 spaces.  The bill passed has a number of conditions that fall on the shoulders of the owners of the Jacksonville Landing.  If the Jacksonville Landing Investments, LLC decides to do away with its agreement with the city, an agreement made more than 20 years ago, then Parador gets more money and they'd build more parking.

Should JLI decide that they're deal with the city that requires them right now to build an additional 300 parking spots during the week and 375 for the weekend, if they say that deal is completed Parador would get more than $132,000 a year for about 14 years after year 6 to help give Landing patrons a discount.

If they don't agree with the deal then the city would still have to find a way to accomplish that deal, the parking garage would have some fewer spaces and they would get less grant money long-term.

Also written into this bill is a deal that would allow the owners of the SunTrust building to buy a piece of land nearby.  The Sister Cities Parcel would be sold to Parador for $500.  The catch, they would have to build a structure there at least two stories high.

Regardless of how many spaces end up being included in this parking garage there will be some sort of short-term parking.  It could be done by 2017.