City votes to acquire PART lot

The city of Mount Airy is acquiring one of the largest public parking lots in town: a former park-and-ride facility near Big Lots.

This is occurring through a 5-0 vote by the city commissioners Thursday night to buy the site operated for about 10 years by the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation (PART) until being discontinued in July 2022.

Mount Airy officials agreed to spend $145,000 for the 4.9-acre tract at 1334 Carter St. just off U.S. 52-South, using state funding previously allocated.

The lot served as a connecting point where local residents could park their vehicles and ride buses to key locations in Winston-Salem and elsewhere as part of a network operated by PART.

Although it was hailed as an advancement for public transportation, the Mount Airy stop was dropped more than two years ago through a funding cut by the Surry County Board of Commissioners.

It decided that low ridership at the time did not justify the money to support the public transportation program locally.

Soccer parking kicked around

Meanwhile, the parking lot left behind — containing about 215 spaces — has remained in use by the general public.

Discussion at Thursday’s city council meeting indicated that some carpoolers still rely on the lot as a gathering point. A number of vehicles fitting that profile were noticed there Friday.

“The parking lot’s in great shape,” City Manager Darren Lewis said before the commissioners’ vote to buy the facility, including well-appointed landscaping and fencing.

Lewis explained that the acquisition ties into an earlier real estate move by city officials to buy another parcel nearby.

The Mount Airy Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in March to purchase a 12.5-acre site along Carter Street where Bonnie Lou’s Flea Market had operated for almost 25 years.

Since that property has limited development value due to being in a floodplain, city officials have suggested using the empty field left behind for recreational purposes.

This has included multiple soccer fields to accommodate the continually growing interest here in that sport.

“And we would need parking,” Commissioner Tom Koch said of the city’s motivation for acquiring the former PART lot, which also is near the Granite City Greenway.

“It already is being utilized some as a public entrance for the greenway,” Lewis advised.

The property is listed as still being owned by the Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation.

Seen as great opportunity

“That lot is up for sale,” the city manager told the commissioners Thursday night in introducing the deal.

The $145,000 purchase price represents the appraised value of the property, according to Lewis, although its present tax value is $137,720.

City Public Works Director Mitch Williams said Thursday night that it likely would cost about $500,000 for the municipality to build such a parking lot itself.

“I personally think it would be a good, wise move for us to move forward with that,” Lewis said of buying the property.

The transaction also made sense financially for another reason, the city manager mentioned.

It is being financed through an existing $4 million grant city officials accepted earlier this year from state emergency and disaster response reserve funds administered by the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

While that grant mostly has been eyed in connection with efforts to extend the greenway north toward J.J. Jones Intermediate School, Lewis said it also can be used for the land purchase across town near the greenway.

“We have property-acquisition money within that grant,” the city manager explained.

Mayor Jon Cawley acknowledged Thursday night that there is a tendency to be happy about using grants from outside sources for such expenditures — not realizing that taxpayer dollars ultimately are involved.

But those financing sources are out there and don’t seem to be ending anytime soon, the mayor said.

And if Mount Airy doesn’t tap into such funds, other communities will, Cawley reasoned.