As warmer weather brings more visitors to Ellijay, new parking signs have gone up around downtown the past few weeks. Some have been put up to direct motorists to free parking options, such as the courthouse/Dalton State lot, while others are for pay parking, an anomaly for downtown.
Increasing awareness of available parking options downtown has been a recent topic of discussion amongst the Ellijay Downtown Development Authority (DDA). At a recent meeting, members of the DDA’s safety committee discussed conferring with local commission chair Charlie Paris to see if the Spring Street lot used by courthouse employees and visitors to the neighboring Tabor House Museum could also be used for general weekend parking.
That request was approved, and new signs have been put up saying the lot can be used for public parking Saturday and Sunday only, Paris confirmed.
“They reached out and asked if it might be possible to open it up to overflow parking (and) I told them we could make it work on weekends. Before I gave them a response, I checked to make sure the sheriff didn’t have any reason to use a lot of that space on the weekends and they were very supportive of it (being used for public parking),” he added.
New blue signs, the first few of which are now up at North Avenue and the intersection of College and North Main Street, direct drivers to the courthouse/Dalton State parking lot and are part of the DDA’s recent efforts to point visitors toward available parking, confirmed DDA chairman Reece Sanford.
“We want to try to get the parking in those lots behind downtown, which would be the Dalton State lot and that county parking lot on weekends,” he added.
Sanford said more of the directional signs will go up later.
“There is an order for customized signs that are going to be Gilmer County themed,” Sanford said. “We felt like part of the parking issue is you come into town and, if you’re not familiar with the town, it’s hard to find where to park. I believe our signs were brown prior to this, which is not universally recognized as a sign for parking. (That’s) why we changed them to a more recognizable design.”
The pay-park signs are not part of the DDA’s parking signage, Sanford noted.
Those pay spaces are located in the small Dalton Street lot between the courthouse and South Main Street shops just before the roundabout. The signs advertise that contactless parking payments can be made using the Park Mobile online app, a contactless pay-to-park service that covers the U.S. and Canada. So far, only four of the signs have been put up.
According to tax assessors office records, the parking lot is registered to CHS Holdings LLC, also listed as owner of the neighboring 9 Southside Square address that formerly housed Bank of Ellijay, Cherokee Federal Bank and the county criminal investigations and planning and zoning offices.