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FREE PARKING

The Messenger, Main Street FD partner to bag meters

-Messenger photo by Chad Thompson
Kate Stucky, a member of the Main Street Fort Dodge Board, left, places a free parking bag over a parking meter in downtown Fort Dodge as Cory Bargfrede, advertising director of The Messenger, holds up one of the bags. A city of Fort Dodge parking enforcement vehicle passes by, traveling southbound. The bags will cover all parking meters in the downtown area from Nov. 25 to Jan. 1 and will allow two hours of free parking per visitor. The Messenger is partnering with Main Street Fort Dodge for the promotion with the goal of attracting more people to the downtown stores.

Parking in downtown Fort Dodge will be a whole lot easier during the holidays.

That’s because Main Street Fort Dodge will have all the parking meters covered with bags, according to Main Street Director Kris Patrick.

The bags went on the meters late Friday afternoon. Those bags represent free two-hour parking for visitors to the downtown.

“The goal is just to have more people come downtown, that parking is one more thing they don’t have to think about,” Patrick said. “Within two hours you can have a great lunch or a great meeting with friends or get a lot of shopping in.”

Morgan Fitzgerald, Real Deals owner and co-chair of the promotion team for Main Street Fort Dodge, said people tend to have a negative perception of the meters.

“A lot of the problem is there is a perceived negativity that accompanies the meters downtown and we want to make Fort Dodge a friendly place to shop this winter, so temporarily we are bagging the meters,” Fitzgerald said.

The meters that are bagged generate about $26,000 a year in revenue, according to Jeff Nemmers, the city clerk and finance director.

The Messenger is covering the cost of the bags. Main Street is underwriting the cost of lost income for the city up to $2,000.

“This was a chance for us to help out and partner with Main Street to provide that free parking for the downtown area,” said Cory Bargfrede, advertising director for The Messenger. “We are happy to do it.”

Patrick said restaurants in particular, have been negatively affected by the meters.

“I think the eating establishments definitely find themselves not able to have long meetings and corporations come in,” Patrick said. “It’s hard to remember to plug that meter, so if we are trying to pull people in for corporate meetings and for them to have tickets, they may not come back. Even for some stores to drop off a computer for service, it would be nice to have a loading zone option in front of some of the businesses maybe sometime in the future.”

Having the meters bagged will offer a chance for Main Street Fort Dodge to survey how free two-hour parking impacts businesses.

“I think this will be a good opportunity to see if anything changes and how it changes because we haven’t had that information,” Fitzgerald said.

Patrick said Main Street will put out surveys online to measure the results.

Fitzgerald added, “To see the areas that are really affected by it. It’s hard for me because I don’t have the meters outside. I think it will be so interesting to see the ones directly affected by it.”

Patrick said if the effect is limited, that is beneficial, too.

“That will tell us something too,” Patrick said. “The ultimate decision lies with the city council whether we will keep the meters, go with a passport system, or something entirely different.”

The meters will be bagged through Jan. 1.

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