The city of College Park broke ground for its new parking garage last Thursday, as dignitaries turned over shovelfuls of dirt and Mayor Stephen Brayman attacked a house with an excavator.
The five-level, $8 million garage is located downtown at the corner of Knox Road and Yale Avenue and is scheduled to be completed by the end of next summer. It will include 300 parking spaces and 5,800 square feet of retail, which is enough for one to four storefronts.
Several dozen city officials and residents gathered under a tent on the property on which the garage will be built, where Brayman, Prince George’s County Councilman Eric Olson and Downtown College Park Management Authority representative John Brown spoke about difficulties the city has faced since the idea for a garage first arose more than a decade ago.
“There was a time when I thought cars would be obsolete by the time this garage is built,” Brown said. “It will have a huge economic benefit for downtown merchants.”
Dignitaries, including elected officials from the city and county and representatives of the construction company, posed for pictures wearing matching hardhats as they officially broke ground, turning over a few clods of dirt with shovels decorated with bows.
The garage is being built on the space now occupied by a city-owned parking lot and two homes the city recently purchased for demolition, one of which was partially flattened by Olson and a grinning Brayman.
“Ooh, bouncy seat,” Brayman said as he climbed into the excavator, before using the machine’s arm to knock down the house’s roofed front porch.
Despite the show of the groundbreaking ceremony, construction of the garage waits on pending building permits. City officials said the permits should be released “soon.”
City officials and other speakers at the groundbreaking urged the assembled crowd to come back for the garage’s grand opening.
“Come and use the parking garage, eat, drink, and be happy,” Brown said.
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