Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023–12:09 p.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

The Rome Downtown Development Authority is looking at temporarily removing the 3-hour time limit for parking on Broad Street for a couple of months, as part of a parking study.

According to DDA director Aundi Lesley, the aim of the study will be to get true, hard data about how long consumers are staying downtown and if the time limit changes consumer behavior.

“There’s a lot of conjecture and speculation on what we think,” she said. “Each individual business, depending on their business model, they may be a hair salon, for instance, where their client may have to spend four hours downtown. They are very unique versus a retail shop. So, we would like to get an average of how long people would be willing to stay downtown, and how much they are willing to shop and spend money downtown if there is no restriction of a time limit, which is currently three hours.”

The preliminary plan is to suspend enforcement of the time limit during the months of March and April.

“We want to heavily promote that, so people know that during the months of March and April, they can spend as much time downtown as they want,” Lesley added. “They will be able to shop, eat, walk, hang out, and spend some extra time downtown without feeling rushed or worrying about getting a parking ticket.”

The DDA is reaching out to business owners to inform them and get feedback. This would only apply to on-street parking on Broad, not the parking decks.

Façade grant awarded for Kaleido-Sno building

The Rome Downtown Development Authority on Thursday voted to award a $3,000 façade grant for 414 Broad Street, which is the current home of Kaleido-Sno.

The work plan calls for the addition of awnings to the main floor and windows along with paint, trim, caulking, and façade cleanup.

The project must also go before the Historic Preservation Commission for approval.