Jul 13, 2024 By Paul Paterra 3 min read

Washington City Council approved the sale of the Crossroads Parking Garage to the county at its meeting Thursday.

The sale is contingent on negotiations and review by the city’s solicitor. The price was not disclosed.

“There have been some numbers thrown around,” Mayor JoJo Burgess said Friday. “We’re still talking.”

County commissioners are looking to purchase the garage for parking for county employees. The employees currently park at the Courthouse Square garage, which is targeted for demolition to make way for construction of a new public safety complex.

The garage opened in May 2007 and cost an estimated $14.1 million to build. Since then, the garage has been losing money.

“This will be a benefit to the residents to get this off the books, let the county have it and move it in a different direction from when it was originally built,” Burgess said. “Every year, the city loses money trying to maintain it. It’s time we let somebody else deal with that problem.”

City Administrator Donn Henderson said earlier this year that the city has spent about $800,000 over the last 17 years to offset revenue shortages from the annual bond payments.

More than half of the 780 spaces in the garage are under monthly leases.

The garage is owned and operated by the City of Washington Parking Authority, but money from the sale will be distributed to the city, Washington School District and the county due to a tax-increment financing plan used to build the garage. The city, which owns 50% of the garage, and school district, 43%, will receive the bulk of the revenue. The county owns the remainder.

The school district still needs to vote on the sale.

Superintendent George Lammay said the district did not receive paperwork regarding the proposed sale from the county until a few hours before Monday’s school board meeting.

“We’re not in the position to have that analyzed by our solicitor in a couple of hours,” Lammay said. “We had spoken to (county officials) on several occasions that we needed something in writing and we needed to have a clear understanding from the city as to how they view how the funds would be distributed. We know there’s some debt on the garage. Do all parties in the proposal understand that we receive 43% after the debt is cleared?”

Lammay also expressed concern over the figure reported for the appraisal of the garage, which Nick Sherman, chair of the board of commissioners, said earlier this year was slightly more than $4 million.

“If you look at the county website, the most recent assessment was someplace over $7 million,” Lammay said. “Some of our board members were concerned that might not be a correct number to work off of.”

The school board is not scheduled to meet again until August.

Burgess said the city has measures in place to make sure the sale happens even without the school district’s approval.

“I would hope that they would want to come and work with us,” Burgess said. “We’re doing what’s best for the residents. They would get a sum of money with no input into it. All of the losses have been sustained by the city. They’ve never paid a percentage of that, but they’ll still get a benefit from the sale of the garage.”