The Tallahassee City Commission held a workshop Wednesday to respond to recommendations provided by the Leon County’s Department of Planning.
The workshop recommended implementing new infrastructure on Gaines Street, Midtown, Monroe Street, Market district and other Tallahassee corridors.
Cherie Bryant, planning manager for the Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Department introduced staff recommendations for the Gaines Street corridor including a parking lot plan and wayfinding signs.
“We are now trying to find parking because there are so many things happening downtown," Byrant said. "It is an important problem, not to dismiss it. It is a good problem to have."
For the problems regarding visitors or residents who have trouble understanding parking lot signs, Bryant suggested developing flyers or portable maps to provide to lost individuals.
“In the design work studio we are trying to produce a public map so that businesses can distribute it to their visitors or customers so that they can locate parking,” Bryant said.
Mayor Andrew Gillum suggested a design for the parking lot signs. Utilizing a universal wayfinding sign in order to reduce verbiage confusion from private parking versus public parking signs. The universal sign will ultimately help guide visitors or residents back to their parked location.
“In some cities you will find the big blue ‘P’ and it protrudes off of whatever the parking structure is; you can recognize it almost anywhere and folks know that means it’s public parking. I think the universal signage is high priority,” Gillum said.
Adding on to the work plan, Department of Planning staff suggested for the Morrow-Adams corridor to implement new direction signs in the future once the location begins to redevelop.
The planning department additionally suggested that the Morrow-Adams area should include walkable spaces that are reliable for cyclist, pedestrians and transit customers.
As the workshop ended, Commissioner Gil Ziffer suggested that the board explore the idea of having a pet-friendly park.
“Somebody approached me about the need of a dog park, besides Tom Brown Park. We don’t have somewhere people can safely take their dog,” Ziffer said.
Ziffer suggested the cemetery along the area of Park Avenue due to the canine owners that reside in that area.
The City Workshop was the first part of a two-part presentation. The City will hold the latter meeting in November. For more information regarding work plan on the Gaines Street and Marrow-Adams corridors visit, https://www.talgov.com/.