Parking woes cause frustration in Rountree

In a May meeting of Springfield City Council, Councilmember Craig Hosmer asked city staff to look into parking issues in the Rountree neighborhood. Hosmer said he had been receiving calls and emails from neighbors with concerns about the commercial node familiarly known as Pickwick & Cherry.

That area, so named because it surrounds the intersection of Pickwick Avenue and Cherry Street on the Rountree neighborhood’s north end, features a number of small and boutique businesses, from Artistree Pottery LLC, where customers can sip cocktails and paint pottery pieces, to Tea Bar and Bites, a tearoom, bakery and pie outpost with indoor and outdoor dining. Among the other businesses in the neighborhood commercial node are Imo’s Pizza, Ott’s Pasta LLC, The Royal, The Local Bevy and Howler Bike Co. LLC.

Looming over its smaller neighbors is Tie & Timber Beer Co. LLC, arguably the area’s largest draw. The bar and taproom at the site of an early 1900s lumberyard opened in 2018. In March, it opened a two-story, 10,000-square-foot addition housing a restaurant and pizza kitchen.

According to past Springfield Business Journal reporting, the first-floor restaurant, called the Tie & Timber Pizza Kitchen, seats 100, and the building’s top floor seats another 100 with an event space and overflow seating. The development welcomes more patrons to its existing beer garden within the bustling district.

The development is on a different scale than the rest of the neighborhood, and it required amendments to the standards of the Rountree Urban Conservation District, in place since 1985 and updated in recent years. Those changes, introduced at a September 2023 City Council meeting, allowed a 4-foot-higher finished ground floor elevation for the planned building, upping the profile of the edifice.

A staff report from the council bill introduced at that meeting describes the Pickwick & Cherry commercial node, stating, “This area is designed to provide for sensitive and respectful infill development within this dense, urban, mixed-use, vibrant gathering space within the neighborhood.”

Indeed, the city’s Forward SGF comprehensive plan envisions commercial hubs in many of the city’s neighborhoods, and the corner of Pickwick and Cherry serves as a model for what’s possible. Among the top 10 initiatives of Forward SGF is the development of neighborhood commercial hubs – establishments that would act as activity centers within walkable neighborhoods.

In an email, Curtis Marshall, owner of Tie & Timber, acknowledged the difficulties reported by some of his neighbors.

“It’s exciting to see Rountree thriving and serving as an example of what’s possible in our city’s neighborhoods,” he said. “But of course, with that success comes an adjustment period for traffic and parking patterns.”

While Marshall said he has not followed social media discussions describing blocked driveways in the residential portion of the neighborhood, he acknowledged that would be a frustrating problem.

“We dealt with similar growing pains a few years ago, which the city mitigated by painting parking stalls along the streets,” he said. “I’m hopeful a similar, practical solution could be implemented now.

“It’s important that visitors treat our neighbors’ property with respect.”

Process questioned
Katie Kring owns a much smaller Rountree business – Pickwick & Cherry, a bakery and gift shop with a teaching kitchen. Its website notes private teaching and dining events are offered, “with an absolute maximum capacity of 12.”

Kring, who has been in her location for 13 years, said she has heard neighborhood concerns about parking with the expansion of Tie & Timber, and she shares some of their frustration.

“Basically, I don’t know who permitted a building that large without dealing with the parking,” she said.

She said the new Tie & Timber restaurant was built upon existing parking space for the business as it draws a larger clientele. That naturally pushes parking into the neighborhood.

“Businesses advocate for themselves,” Kring said. “I don’t blame Tie & Timber for asking, but I do blame everyone for saying yes. I’d love to know how that process went down.”

Kring has an unusual idea to help with the parking, and it involves the closed-down Pink Cadillac strip club at 765 S. Glenstone Ave., slightly south and east of Tie & Timber. Kring suggested that the city buy the lot as a satellite parking location for the district and run a shuttle on weekends.

“It’s kind of a borderline nuisance property now anyway,” she said. “It would have the advantage of pulling the development that has happened in Rountree in that direction – especially if they spent a couple thousand dollars and put in some flowerbeds and planters to make it look like a decent place instead of a sketchy place.”

Kring isn’t the only one with ideas for fixing the problem. In a private Rountree Neighborhood Association Facebook group with 2,200 members, residents frequently post photos of blocked driveways and obstructed fire hydrants on Pickwick and Weller avenues.

City officials confirmed that they are in conversation with the board about possible solutions to the parking problem. A neighborhood association board member confirmed they were asked to create a Facebook post to determine if there is buy-in for additional parking stall striping on South Pickwick Avenue, continuing the striping on the 600 block, closest to Cherry Street, onto the 700 block, ending at Madison Street.

The June 4 post notes a “bigger, more long-term fix” is desired, but the striping can ease the problems somewhat in the present. Striping is not possible on Weller Avenue, which is 10 feet narrower, city officials confirmed in an email to SBJ.

The association post garnered 22 supportive comments by June 10, as well as one comment suggesting letting the air out of the tires of vehicles found to be blocking driveways.

In brainstorming sessions, facilitators commonly say there’s no such thing as a bad idea, though some other notions for better parking arrangements are on the table for city officials.

Parking solutions
Two city departments are looking at the issue – Public Works and Planning and Development.

Brett Foster, an engineer and assistant director of Public Works, is focused on parking. The conversation is lively and ongoing where Rountree parking is concerned, Foster said.

“We’ve had dozens and dozens of parking conversations around Rountree, and we’re trying to find that balance,” he said. “It’s rather volatile, and you have to be careful. In my experience, I’ve never done a parking change that has made even most of the people happy.”

Foster said striping can be controversial, and often there is not consensus on how best to incorporate vehicles within a residential neighborhood. Still, it’s an idea that is being considered.

“When you bring something popular like Tie & Timber, obviously you’re going to have traffic generated that isn’t from the neighborhood,” he said.

Another option is increasing enforcement. He said there have been discussions with city police about doing an enforcement blitz in Rountree.

A special parking district is also on the table, and a few of those exist around the city, Foster said. That’s something council would have to establish.

“They’re pretty limited,” he said. “Enforcement becomes an issue.”

Foster said time helps when it comes to changes in parking and traffic patterns.

“The biggest thing I can say is it takes a collective approach,” he said. “The business owners, the neighbors and the city have to work together. One of the three alone doesn’t fix anything.”

Neighborhood plans
While Public Works looks closely at parking, Planning and Development tries to take in the big picture. Director Steve Childers said neighborhood plans provide a holistic, comprehensive approach that can ward off problems with future development.

Within Springfield, 24 neighborhoods are soon to get new or updated neighborhood plans – documents to guide growth and development over time. Additionally, he said, three nonregistered neighborhoods have reached out to his office to express an interest in becoming registered and getting plans of their own.

Those neighborhoods will have an opportunity to say where they might like to see commercial nodes and what they might look like. Rountree’s successful node is often offered as a paragon to be copied elsewhere, but the fact is, each neighborhood is distinctive, Childers said. For another neighborhood, a commercial node could consist of a coffee or ice cream shop or an eatery alone.

The neighborhood plans must contemplate parking around any commercial development, according to Childers.

Justin Crighton, assistant director of planning, said the idea of the neighborhood commercial node is that it would serve the neighborhood first through walkability.

“Auto trips would be reduced the more you have around the city,” he said.

He gave the example of Bambino’s at 1141 E. Delmar St. in the Phelps Grove neighborhood.

“Bambino’s shows it can be done successfully,” he said.

Childers said Springfield is in a transitional phase from being a large town to a more metropolitan city.

“Forward SGF says change can occur in an appropriate manner,” he said. “It has laid out a vision of what that can look like.”

Neighborhood plans will help move the vision from broad to specific for each neighborhood, Childers noted.

Deputy City Manager Maurice Jones agreed.

“Neighborhood plans are going to make it functional,” he said. “There are going to be a variety of things we have to look at. We have to be creative and innovative and come up with ideas to serve the growing community. We want to see commercial nodes be successful.”

The neighborhood plans hold promise for future development in other neighborhoods, and Rountree’s plan, too, is in line for an upgrade.

But residents on Pickwick and Weller avenues are looking for solutions now.

Addressing friction
Councilmember Hosmer said he has heard many complaints from Rountree residents about parking.

“It’s good that there’s a lot of new development there at Cherry and Pickwick, but it’s causing some problems with too many cars parking on residential streets,” he said.

Hosmer said he supports the idea of adding marked parking spots further down Pickwick.

“It’s probably exacerbated in Rountree, but a lot of those developments aren’t required to have any parking at all,” he said.

As examples, Hosmer cited businesses like Team Taco LLC, a taco eatery, and Cherry Picker LLC, a small bar, lunch counter and package store that does business as Cherry Picker Package and Fare – both located in historic commercial buildings.

He said the new Tie & Timber building is a good development, but the city has to be mindful of problems experienced by the neighborhood from its expansion.

“If you take care of that better, neighbors are less likely to fight future developments,” he said. “Sometimes we create some of that friction when we don’t think about what the impact is going to be long term. We can at least start the process of trying to address the issue people are having.”