A reminder: As the $11 million State Street Garage expansion work heads into the planned second phase, South Central Street will reopen and State Street will close, beginning Monday, Jan. 21.
Ongoing work on the east side of the garage is wrapping up, and the 300-foot-tall Austrian-made crane is moving next week from Central Street to State Street, where it will be hoisting prefabricated concrete slabs into place on the garage’s west side.
Besides altering the traffic-flow pattern around the garage by closing State Street to vehicles and pedestrians, the work will noticeably impact people parking in the garage through early March:
• The garage elevator will be out of commission while crews add two new floors and heighten the elevator, and the pedestrian walkway over State Street, which connects the garage to Gay Street, will be closed.
• State Street will be an active construction site. So pedestrians walking between the garage and Gay Street – including people wanting to get to and from the Regal Riviera movie theater – will not be able to cross State Street except at the Clinch and Union avenue intersections.
• About half the parking spaces in the garage will be out of commission; pay attention to the digital displays at the garage entrance that notify you whether the garage is full before you pull in.
• The garage’s State Street entrance and exit will be closed during this phase of construction. Entrances remain open on Clinch and Union avenues, and the only exit out of the garage from next week through early March will be onto Union Avenue.
The State Street Garage remains within budget and on schedule, with about 570 new parking spaces expected to be open by June.
"We knew it would become much less convenient for visitors to the garage once we hit the midpoint on this project,” Downtown Coordinator Rick Emmett said. “Because of the limited spaces, the single exit, and the closure of the elevator and walkway, we strongly recommend that motorists check the parkopedia app for more convenient and accessible parking options during this phase of the construction.”