Lansing Mayor Budgets $6 Million for New Downtown Parking Ramp

The mayor of Lansing has set aside $6 million to build a parking ramp to support development on the east side of the Grand River.

According to excerpts from the article:

The money for the parking ramp appears in Mayor Virg Bernero’s executive budget recommendation for the 2009-10 fiscal year and notes that $3 million more would be needed to actually build the ramp.

The $6 million would come from the parking services fund, and the additional $3 million might be bonded for. No general fund money would be for the ramp.

“There´s an evolution of the parking system. I've said this to Council on many occasions,” Bob Johnson, director of the Department of Planning and Neighborhood Development, said.

Johnson pointed to the purchase of the BoarsHead Theater property at Grand Avenue and Lenawee Street. The city wants to construct a ramp on the property to accommodate the new state police headquarters and other downtown attractions.

“We´re going where we´re going to be needed—where we see development occurring,” Johnson said of the decision to build the new ramp. He said the new ramp would most likely go east of the Lansing Center and include a small commercial element.

Read the entire article here.