DDA to begin towing parking violators

A year after the Downtown Development Authority placed signs at its 20 spaces for designated parking on Madison Street, the organization has voted to begin towing vehicles that overstay their two-hour welcome.

Throughout the year, some drivers have parked their vehicles longer than the requested two-hour limit in these 20 designated spaces located behind Deano’s, Saltwater Fishery and Moe’s on Madison. This has caused the DDA to recently approve enforcing the limit on vehicles that are parked there more than two hours. This new rule will begin sometime in the early part of 2025, said DDA Executive Director Glenda Berry.

“One of the things was how was this going to be monitored,” she said. “We are looking at having a security camera that would be an additional enforcement, while we are finalizing the towing company that we will be working with and they will actually put up additional signage.” 

This will be enforced Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“I think we have exhausted the topic of parking in downtown,” Berry said. “I think parking is one of those things where there may never be a perfect resolution. But at least for this parking lot and in terms of doing something proactively and from the feedback we’ve heard from the merchants and restauranteurs around there, this will be helpful.” 

The number of parking spaces and a map of where people can park had also been the topic of discussion during the last couple of DDA meetings this year. Berry wanted to publish the map in the newspaper to show the number of public and private parking spaces on  the map from downtown Dublin with the addresses for them.

“We have to help people find the positive side in terms of direction,” Berry said. “Maybe people don’t recognize all of the parking spaces that are available. If you look at a lot of the downtowns that are part of the Main Street program like we are, there are top three topics that continue to bubble up, and parking will always seem to be one of them.” 

DDA Chairman Rob Miller was pleased with the maps and the new rules for the designated parking spaces.

“Hopefully, this will solve some of the parking issues,” he said. 

Also at the meeting:

– Berry announced they will need to replace the roof of the Carniege Library and Theatre Dublin. DDA staff was notified about a leak in the men’s restroom, and there was also a leak upstairs above the soundboard.

“The roof for the theater might be about $25,000, which is better than I thought it would be,” Berry said. “The Carnegie is specialized because it has a different kind of pitch on it and that building is 120 years old. We’ll have that in January to look at, and we are going to have to work it out.” 

Work on the Carniege Library will be less than $15,000, she added.

“There is a lot to do there, but it is not the same sense of urgency as the (theater’s) roof,” Berry said. “We have money that comes in to help with capital expenses.” 

– Berry made the board aware of the new green space planned at the intersection of Church and Madison streets. 

“Georgia Power has given the DDA $10,000, which would go toward developing new green space,” Berry said. “Because the mayor, (Joshua Kight) is very aware of improvement and his knowledge of things, we’re going to have a meeting so he can look at Church and Madison and we can try to come up with what the first steps of the designs would look like. We are trying to change it from a garden to more of a green space. We want to make it more attractive. It is low maintenance. 

“Thomasville is someplace we have looked at a lot because they have a lot wonderful things in that city.” 

She hopes to have an artist’s rendering of this area by the February meeting.

“I think having the mayor’s input, especially since he lives just down the street, will make it a really nice improvement,” Berry said. “We will really start all over and make it a true green space in a downtown community instead of what it is right now. We are truly thankful for the gift from Georgia Power, which will get us started.” 

–  DDA operations manager Nichole Padgett talked about the success of Christmas at the Market, which had 31 vendors sell food and various items. 

“I worked both nights, and it was, really, really nice, and really, really cold,” Padgett said. “We had great numbers come out and great vendors. Next year, our plan is to up our game a little bit. We always want to make it better. We came up with a lot of ideas and the vendors really commended us for having a nice event for them.”

– Berry announced that meetings are being held and plans made for Pig in the Park, the annual St. Patrick’s barbecue event that will be held on March 7 and 8. 

“We haven’t made any plans to move the location of the event right now,” Berry said. “There is really no reason to think that we would have it anywhere other than Market on Madison at this point.”

Berry wants people to remember that the construction on the Madison Street Project, which officially began in July 2024, was always planned to take a year to complete.