Harford Business Ledger

Signs will lead tourists to parking in Harve de Grace
By Mary Paramore, HBL Associate Editor

The City of Havre de Grace and Harford County will spend $4,200 to help tourists find parking downtown this summer. Harford County’s Department of Economic Development and Tourism will contribute $3,200 and Havre de Grace’s Tourism office will contribute $800. Both entities will provide in kind services, as well.

City and County representatives met with Havre de Grace businesses owners and Chamber of Commerce officials in City Council Chambers April 17 to discuss parking challenges created by an expansion project at a jointly operated water treatment plant along Havre de Grace’s waterfront.

Brigitte Layton, manager of tourism and marketing for the city, created the marketing plan that calls for unique signs, billboards and rack cards to identify and direct tourists to new and existing parking.

The signs, billboards and rack cards are in addition to radio and print ads that were already included in the city’s marketing and tourism budget. Those initiatives will be tweaked to address parking. Layton said Havre de Grace’s free parking has been a tourist draw in the past.

“Everything is in the development stages. We plan to use the international parking symbol with something unique to Havre de Grace,” she said. Final marketing pieces can be developed only after parking areas are leased by the city, but the working group set a tentative deadline of Mother’s Day, May 11.

City officials are in negotiations to lease three sites from private landowners. The sites are the McLhinney property on Lodge Lane, which will yield 24 spots; behind Christmas Magic on St. John Street, which will yield about 14 spots, and after hours at BB&T Bank, which will provide 29 spots.

A fourth proposed parking site, this one behind the Bank of Memories on St. Johns Street, fell through when property co-owners all would not agree to lease the land. Jim Newby, spokesperson for Havre de Grace Mayor Wayne Dougherty, confirmed that plans to increase parking on St. John Street by making it one way were not feasible.

An 18-month project to expand the water plant is taking more than half of the downtown area’s largest public parking lot. Officials are scrambling to appease business owners, Main Street Havre de Grace and Chamber of Commerce officials, who say they received no notice of the plan.

Businesses still have no answers as to “Why?”

City and county officials appear to be done with addressing the “why” behind their failure to involve adjacent business owners in plans to expand the water treatment plant operated on the Havre de Grace waterfront by the City and Harford County.

Minutes of the April 17 working group meeting indicate Allen J. Fair, a member of the Havre de Grace Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, asked county project manager Dave Pergrin why, if he has been involved with the project since Day 1, no one met with surrounding property owners. The minutes state, “After some discussion, it was decided that this issue is over with and, as Roxanne Lynch stated, ‘It didn’t happen and it should have’.”

After the meeting, Fair agreed, saying he believes the situation was an oversight, rather than anything intentional, as speculated by business owners (see HBL April 2008 issue).

“Genuine effort is being made, particularly by the City, to address parking,” Fair said. “It’s very good, very positive.”

Havre de Grace business owners, Chamber of Commerce officials and Main Street Havre de Grace officials have said they were not specifically notified of an 18-month closure of downtown’s largest public parking lot. City and County officials have pointed to a sentence on page four of the City’s October 2007 “Citizen’s Connection” newsletter as notification.

Chad Tate, president of the Havre de Grace Chamber of Commerce, said he feels the effort, despite its negative beginning, can turn positive.

“Adjustments made now to parking can only help when the project is done. There are parking issues not just downtown but at the other end of town, too. This project will help us identify more parking now to help later,” Tate said.

At the April 17 meeting were Roxanne Lynch and Dave Pergrin from Harford County; Dougherty, Carol Mathis, Meghan McDonough, Layton and Margaret Famous from the City of Havre de Grace; Cathy Vincenti, Tate, and Allen Fair from the Havre de Grace Chamber of Commerce; and restaurateurs Dan lee and Keith Sappington.