Downtown parking concerns retailers

CROWLEY – Business owners along North Parkerson Avenue to the south of the Acadia Parish Courthouse have been voicing complaints about the lack of available parking - both for their customers and employees – for years.
“It seems like we’ve been discussing this problem for years and I’ve heard plenty of ideas but none of them have ever been implemented,” said Jay Antis, owner of Brandt’s Jewely which has been a fixture in downtown Crowley for 61 years. “I’d say I lose about 20 percent of my business due to our customers being unable to find a place to park.”
Hannah Myers, a longtime employee of Brandt’s says that she has often had to walk several blocks to work because she didn’t want to use a spot that may go to a potential customer.
“Today, I had to walk two blocks to get here,” she said. “It’s much worse on Tuesdays and Thursdays when court (at the nearby Acadia Parish Courthouse) is in session.”
It was only a few months ago when the Crowley City Council, the Acadia Parish Police Jury and Assessor James “Jimbo” Petitjean came to an agreement to remove one of the medians, free of charge, to the east of the courthouse. The removal of the median would have provided 18 additional parking places, free of charge to provide extra parking. However, many people in town, including members of Crowley Main Street and the Crowley Historic District Society, were concerned that removal of the median would take away part of downtown’s historic significance.
“They have people that park on that median every day,” said Myers. “It makes no sense.”
It wasn’t hard to find other business owners along Parkerson Avenue to voice their complaints as well.
“We have customer complaints all the time from people who said they have to walk three or four blocks to get here,” said Kristine Danskin, manager of Joppe’s. “Some people don’t even come by due to the parking arrangements.”
Kyle Duhon who manages Vapour in the same area described the parking a “very limited” and said that there “were 11 parking spaces available for six shops in the area.
When asked about the issue, Alderman Elliot Doré acknowledged that parking along Parkerson is a problem but that there was only so much the city could do, due to the fact that Parkerson is a state highway.
“Any additional parking places would have to be a private endeavor,” he said. “We’ve got other issues that we are currently dealing with such as trying to get raises for our police officers.”
Doré also mentioned the planned removal of the median east of the courthouse.
“We had one solution, although it would have been a Band-Aid, which would’ve been the removal of the median,” he said. “We had groups come out strongly against it so we offered to keep parking in the middle of the median with the outside edges (on the Court Circle and Sixth Street) still intact with the trees and bushes.
“Lyle Fogleman (another Crowley alderman) has a tree on that median that was planted in memory of his mother and he was willing to have it moved. And that still wasn’t enough.”
When asked about the historic significance of keeping the original design of the city’s downtown courthouse area intact, Doré responded “when those designs were created they had dirt roads.”
When looking at an aerial map that showed an overview of the downtown area as well as the owners of area properties, Doré found several areas that were owned by the city that could be developed. He was particularly intrigued by an area on the northwest side of the courthouse (adjacent to the fire station).
“Looking at this,” he said pointing to the map; “I’m curious why we can’t put parking places in this area.”
He also mentioned the parking spaces that lie between Avenues E and F one block to the west of the courthouse.
“I can’t recall the last time I saw that lot full,” he said. “And as far as having to walk four or five blocks, while there will be times when you’ll walk through bad weather, people that live in cities would laugh at us for complaining.”
Doré also wondered how many of the businesses that have been complaining park in front of their businesses themselves.
Antis, however, also voiced his concerns in a recent radio interview and is obviously concerned about the future of his family’s jewelry story that has been in existence since .
“I’ve been telling my customers that if they are having problems parking that I’ll meet them at the stop sign to hand them their items and collect their money,” he said.
“I never though I’d be resorting to curbside service.”