Residents heading to Homewood City Hall may have to think harder about where to park for now. Parts of surface parking above the City Hall parking deck will be closed for about three months due to scheduled maintenance.

Construction on the restoration project started on April 21. The northern section of the lot will be closed for the first six weeks, followed by the southern section for the next six weeks. Homewood officials said drivers should be prepared for possible closures throughout the entire area at any time during the project.

Those adjustments are not the last – the city is working on improving parking across Homewood and that means more changes are coming.

“You have a requirement to maintain your facilities when you’re a municipality, and as such, our city council has been on it to make sure that we maintain our grounds throughout the community,” Glen Adams, Homewood’s city manager, told AL.com.

The city is working on the weather seal membrane beneath the lot behind SoHo and city hall. Much of the parking near Ashley Mac’s and city hall will be unavailable during the project. The pedestrian walkway from the deck to the plaza will stay accessible.

City officials signed a contract for the restoration project in July 2023.

The bid to repair the lot cost $583,060. The city of Homewood agreed to pay 10% of the bid for the project, which is $58,306.

“It was important that when they started seeing leaks, that they researched it, and they went out to bid to repair the damage to the rear surface and the rubber seal of the parking deck,” Adams said.

Officials said the temporary parking disruptions are a necessary part of routine upkeep.

“From what I’m seeing right now, they’ve done phenomenal work in just one week. They’ve done a great job of trying to beat the deadline that they’ve given,” Adams said. “I’ve been really impressed with the contractors. It’s tough to find contractors who are this dedicated.”

City officials are also considering parking improvements in other areas of the city, using a drone to analyze what improvements are needed across Homewood.

One area targeted for improvement is St. Charles St. and Oxmoor Rd. where officials want to decrease congestion during busy hours.

“If you go anytime from 3 to 7 p.m. you’ll see that it gets very congested. I don’t think it’s viable to use that crosswalk there with the traffic as bad as it is…we want to minimize the traffic as much as possible by making it flow,” Adams said.

Parking in Homewood has been a persistent problem that officials have long seen the need to improve, according to the city’s 2018 master plan.

“Visitors to downtown businesses routinely complain that they cannot find convenient parking during daytime lunch hours. Business owners complain that they must police their lots so that their patrons and employees can use them,” the master plan states.

Adams said that fixing parking is not a simple process.

“A lot of our local businesses are complaining…customers don’t have the parking that they need to be able to utilize those facilities…So having an understanding of what the traffic pattern is when it’s the worst, and what kind of enforcement might help, it’s a discussion we are having,” Adams said.

“I’m hoping to get a comprehensive plan that will show where the priorities are by the community and then set the conditions for success…If you have areas that you can create a solution that everybody’s going to be part of, that’s worth investing the time.”