Proposals limit parking, encourage street cafés
Council proposals hope to improve city"s atmosphere
Published March 1, 2005
Columbia's Special Business District has introduced to the Columbia City Council two proposals that would limit the construction of parking lots in the downtown area and allow businesses to sell alcoholic beverages at sidewalk cafés.
The parking proposal would require any new parking lots located within the Columbia Special business district, excluding Providence Road, to be built away from the street and behind buildings, said Carrie Gartner, Special Business District director.
"As far as the parking lots are concerned, we noticed the most exciting parts of downtown are Broadway and Ninth streets because they are exciting for pedestrians to walk up and down," Gartner said. "We are much less successful on Seventh and Eighth streets where there are more parking lots."
In addition, Gartner said she hopes the ordinance would help preserve some of the attractive and historic buildings in downtown Columbia.
The proposal was originally introduced in July, but the City Council asked the Business District to make several changes, Gartner said. She said the new proposal accomplishes the same goal but is more detailed to address the City Council's concerns.
The next step is for the City Council to hand over the proposal to the Planning and Zoning Committee for public hearings, she said.
Sidewalk cafes can serve food and drinks, but not alcoholic beverages. Under another proposal, restaurants would be allowed to serve alcohol during specific times at their sidewalk cafés, Gartner said.
"In addition to having the restaurants on the street instead of parking lots, we think the district will be more fun and economically successful with more things happening on the sidewalks," Gartner said.
Shakespeare's Pizza allows drinking on its patio, but manager and bartender John Gilbreth said Shakespeare's probably would set up additional seating on the sidewalk if the proposal passes.
"It is awesome when you see that type of environment in a more metropolitan area, because it is nice to sit outside in the middle of everything and eat and drink beer," Gilbreth said.
Originally, the proposal stated that restaurants would stop serving alcohol at 9 p.m. and prohibit drinking after 10 p.m. However, several City Council members discussed allowing drinking until 11 p.m.
"Our original goal with the ordinance is that we just wanted to make sure that when bars are closing at 2 a.m., people were not still drinking on the sidewalk so an hour change does not make much of a difference to the purpose of the proposal," Gartner said.
The sidewalk proposal will go before the council for a public hearing on Monday.