Greensboro City Council Authorizes Parking Deck Settlement Agreements to N Club and others
GREENSBORO, NC – The owners of the Cone Denim Entertainment Center, N Club, will receive a $735,000 settlement from the City of Greensboro that will allow the city to move forward with construction of a parking deck necessary in the construction of a downtown Westin Hotel. The argument from Cone Denim’s owners was that the easement behind their facility needed for the parking deck was also needed by the tour buses of performers at CDEC.
Construction of the planned February One Parking Deck in downtown Greensboro is set to move forward after Greensboro City Council voted 8-0 Tuesday night authorizing settlement agreements in which property owners adjacent to the construction site transferred their easement rights to the City. Once finished, the parking deck will provide an additional 850 public parking spaces to accommodate downtown businesses and visitors.
The City will pay $325,000 to the N Club and $325,000 to the Greater Greensboro Entertainment Group LLC in exchange for its easement rights and an additional $85,000 in attorney’s fees.
As part of the agreements, the City will provide cash settlements in exchange for needed easement rights that are free of all existing and future actions, claims, rights and demands. The City will pay Peter’s Holdings $150,000 for its easement rights and an additional $35,000 in attorney’s fees. Peter’s Holdings will also have the option to lease up to six reserved spaces in the parking deck at market rates. The City will pay $325,000 to the N Club and $325,000 to the Greater Greensboro Entertainment Group LLC in exchange for its easement rights and an additional $85,000 in attorney’s fees. The plaintiff will dismiss their legal challenge as well. The City is also providing the N Club with event parking rights in the alleyway behind their property and a small piece of City parking lot property adjacent to their building (to allow N Club to construct of a new dressing / staging room for its performers).
According to Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, with the settlements finalized the City and its development partner can now focus on building the parking deck and preparing for future business growth downtown. “Every city wants to say that it is poised for growth in the heart of its business district,” says Vaughan. “Yes, any community that is changing and growing like Greensboro is going to have growing pains. But, growing pains normally occur as part of growth cycles and that’s what we’re poised to have now. With this deck in place, it will accommodate the development of a planned hotel and future business growth and expansion along that portion of downtown.”
In early March, the City’s Department of Transportation engaged Kimley-Horn to review the downtown off-site parking status and needs. The planning and design consulting firm completed a Downtown Greensboro Parking Review Summary, available online at www.greensboro-nc.gov, that indicated that with as much as one million square feet of new development and redevelopment planned for downtown Greensboro over the next three to four years, parking issues should be addressed in the short term. According to the review summary, Kimley-Horn indicates that “a well-managed parking program can be a significant contributor to advancing a community’s economic development goals, improving the overall experience of accessing core neighborhoods, and, in the City’s case, welcoming residents and visitors to an increasingly thriving Downtown business district.”
In December 2017, City Council authorized the City to move forward with the construction of the February One Parking Deck at a cost not to exceed $30 million and with an annual operating, maintenance and debt cost of $2.6 million. The parking deck will be built for the City by Elm Street Hotel LLC in conjunction with a hotel that is set to be built at the site of the current Elm Street Center. Once completed, the hotel will lease up to 180 spaces in the parking deck at market rates.
