Reidsville approves parking plan

Downtown parking was a hot topic of discussion at Tuesday evening’s Reidsville City Council meeting.

Mason King of Swann Paint Company and Teresa Phillips of Everyday Art gave a presentation regarding parking issues downtown. Parking problems have been a regular topic of discussion at downtown merchants association meetings, so the Reidsville Downtown Corporation sent a survey to all the downtown businesses. Based on 26 responses, the majority recommended changing the parking restrictions from two hours to three hours between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday on Gilmer and Southwest streets and to two hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday on South Scales Street, eliminating Saturday parking restrictions.

“We’ve seen a big increase in traffic and pedestrians on Saturdays downtown,” said King. He said the downtown corporation is trying to make the downtown more inviting and welcoming to out-of-town visitors. “We’re just trying to create a more friendly downtown for outsiders who might come in.”

“In our neighboring communities, parking is free on Saturdays,” said W. Clark Turner, City Council member, in support of the merchants’ association’s recommendations.

Anita Wallace, who plans to open a gourmet food and gift shop downtown and is a member of the Reidsville Downtown Corporation board of directors, thinks Saturday should be a “free parking” day in downtown. She said she would like customers to be able to shop in all the downtown shops on Saturdays and take time and enjoy themselves.

“It is a unique area but it’s becoming an even more unique area,” said Wallace.

Brad Spencer, who owns a sculpture studio and gallery at Southwest Market and Settle streets, pointed out the growth and changing dynamics in downtown Reidsville, which has led to the parking problems.

“We’ve been on Southwest Market Street since 1995 and I’ve had times in the past few weeks where you couldn’t even find a parking space, and that’s a good problem to have,” he said.

Roger Hayes, owner of Hayes Carpet, proposed having three-hour parking throughout the downtown but said he would go with the merchants association’s recommendations.

“This hasn’t been something that we’ve done overnight. It’s been something we’ve been working on for a year or more,” he said.

Donna Lee, who owns GWE at 118 S. Scales St., said the two-hour parking restrictions aren’t a problem for her because her customers are in and out of her business and don’t stay for a prolonged period. She said there are parking lots downtown with no parking restrictions.

“We have free parking lots, so I don’t see why people have a problem with free parking,” she said.

Bonnie Purgason, of Reidsville Florist, also spoke against the merchants’ recommendations.

“I think it should be uniform. I don’t think you can have two hours on one street and three hours on another street. I think that is going to totally confuse people,” she said. According to Purgason, the problem is not the parking restrictions downtown, but the merchants parking in front of their businesses.

“If we could get the merchants off the street, we wouldn’t have any problems with parking. It is hurting all of our stores when our customers can’t get there,” she said. “In this economic time, we’ve got to have every customer we can have, but we’re not going to be able to get them down there if we don’t get the merchants off the street.

Mayor Pro Tem Donald Gorham recommended restricting merchant parking downtown, and Festerman responded to his recommendation.

“It would nice if we could make special restrictions for merchants, but that’s not legally possible,” he said.

Turner made a motion to approve the recommendation of the merchants’ association and Joan Zdanski seconded the motion.

“We have a busy season coming through with the spring and the summer, so let’s see how it works,” she said. “If it doesn’t work, we can go back and look at it again, but at least it’s a chance to look at it and see if it can work this way.”

Festerman voted in favor of the merchants’ association’s recommendations but warned that the parking problem is something that will probably come up again.

“I’m pretty sure this is not a cure-all,” he said. “We will probably have to address it again, but I’m willing to accept the hard work of the downtown merchants’ association in making a compromise.”

The motion to approve the merchants’ association’s recommendations was carried 4-3.

Staff Writer Miranda Baines can be reached at or 349-4331, ext. 35.