AccessAnnapolis.com Provides Information on Parking and Transit Options
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ANNAPOLIS, MD – Annapolis’ downtown Noah Hillman Garage, a more than 40-year old structure which is at the end of its service life, is being rebuilt with the closure set for late March 2022.
Residents and visitors to Annapolis are reminded that, during construction, downtown Annapolis will remain open. Project managers have carefully planned the teardown and rebuild of the garage to be as minimally disruptive as possible. In order to help residents and visitors navigate during the 14-month rebuild project, a new website was recently created: www.AccessAnnapolis.com. The website will serve as a hub for parking and transit information in order to help residents, businesses, employees, customers, and visitors plan their visit to downtown Annapolis.
“We all need to support local businesses during the rebuilding process,” said Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley. “We know that when it is complete, the new garage will be an amazing asset with more parking, better environmental controls and features, easier payments, better lighting, and more safety features. This will be a garage that takes our City into the future.”
The garage was determined to be at the end of its service life as early as 2013 and engineers tagged the structure as a candidate for demolition and replacement in 2017. In March of 2019, the City and Historic Annapolis worked together to convene the 100+ person City Dock Action Committee (CDAC) to craft a resilient path forward for downtown Annapolis and the downtown waterfront. CDAC determined that the Hillman garage concession, through a Public-Private Partnership, could be leveraged to offset some of the costs for the reimagining of City Dock.
In listening to downtown residents and businesses, the City has prioritized planning to protect residential parking in downtown and to move people around the City through the creation of a temporary mobility plan. Residents and visitors to downtown will have a number of parking and transit options available during the rebuild.
Residential Parking: There will be no changes for Ward One permit holders. The Annapolis Mobility and Resilience Partners (AMRP) team has worked to protect residential parking by transitioning paid, on-street parking for non-residents to paid parking through the ParkMobile app and ensuring availability through enhanced parking enforcement in downtown.
Where Can I Park? Without Hillman, there remain more than 3,400 lot and garage spaces available in downtown. The first part of the mobility plan is to help individuals find alternative parking that meets their needs. The City will strongly incentivize parking at Park Place (750 spaces) through reduced parking rates for the duration of the rebuild. Those who hold monthly parking passes at Hillman will be transferred to Gotts Court or Knighton garages (contact Annapolisparking.com to transfer your monthly pass).
Getting Around. The Annapolis Circulator route will be enhanced with upgraded buses that will traverse the usual downtown route with increased frequency. For those who park at Gotts (540 spaces) and Whitmore (278 spaces) garages, an electric trolley will make a close-in loop to State Circle, Dock Street and Main Street. There will also be an option from the City’s microstransit vendor, Via, which will offer on-demand services to and from fixed locations through their proprietary smartphone app. In addition, there are 4,000 additional parking spaces at the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium. Annapolis Transit operates the State Shuttle between the stadium and the Maryland State House buildings. The fare for a one-way trip on the State Shuttle bus is $2. Downtown parking options will continue to include Dock Street, on-street metered locations, and close-in surface lots including Basil, Donner, South Street and Larkin.
The new website will help visitors to plan their visit by offering these options as well as maintaining e-newsletters on the construction and, when the rebuild begins, a live construction camera.
The City urges local residents and businesses to sign up for the e-newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest construction news. Sign up at www.AccessAnnapolis.com.
“The process for reaching a consensus on the design and rebuild of Hillman has been a multi-year project with hundreds of stakeholders and elected officials having input through many public meetings,” said City Manager David Jarrell. “Getting to the start of construction is a huge achievement and I thank the public, City staff and our City Council. We also appreciate the great work that has been done by our developer partner, Annapolis Mobility and Resilience Partners (AMRP) and their strong team. We appreciate everyone’s patience as we work through the inevitable issues associated with this important project. The new garage will be a tremendous improvement for downtown Annapolis.”
Once completed, the new Hillman garage, built on the existing footprint, will include more total parking spaces (increasing from 425 current spaces to 590 spaces in the new garage); working elevators; easier entry, exit and payments; smart technologies like wayfinding and parking space detectors; stormwater controls; solar arrays on the roof (providing shade for cars while generating energy); Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations; bicycle parking; improved lighting, safety and security features; multi-purpose areas on the ground floor; and more.
