Politics & Government

County Snips Ribbon on Parking Deck

City and county officials hope the 534 spaces within the $7.5 million parking structure not only ease parking tension but provide a good revenue source.

Barely 24 hours after Cobb County resolved a $31 million shortfall, county and Marietta officials lined up this morning to unveil a 200,000-square-foot parking deck on Lawrence Street, stressing how parking fees—and not county property taxes—paid for its $7.5 million price tag.

The five-level deck adds 534 spaces to downtown Marietta, giving hope for some relief to parking issues in the area. Parking costs $5 a day for the public, $30 a month for reserved employee parking and $25 a month for unreserved employee parking.

Constructed by Choate Construction and designed by a team of area architects led by Praxix 3, the deck employs LEED design technologies and a state-of-the-art security system. The parking deck replaced a former Fulton Federal Bank building, nicknamed "the Honeycomb building" for its unique facade, which the county had bought more than 10 years ago for office space.

Find out what's happening in Mariettawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

J. Virgil Moon, the county's support services agency director, said construction was completed within nine months, partly because Choate built many parts of the building off-site and then assembled them at the construction area.

"I think it took longer to tear it down than it took to erect it," said County Manager David Hankerson.

Find out what's happening in Mariettawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Chief Judge Robert Flournoy III of Cobb Superior Court said the parking deck does more than complement the design of the recently opened Superior Courthouse across the street. Flournoy said it enables the court to work more efficiently with convenient parking and serves as a step in putting all county court branches back into a central location in Cobb.

He noted that soon all five courts systems—the magistrate court, probate court, juvenile court, state court and superior court—in the same building.

"You know this is the first time in about 25 years that we've had the DA, the clerk of the court and the judges all in the same building," Flournoy said. "And it makes it a lot more efficient because the district attorney just has to come up an elevator or go down so we are able to work a lot better than we have."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here