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Pearl Street Parking Garage
Biddeford's first parking garage, located at 15 Pearl Street, is now open!
Biddeford Mayor Alan Casavant, City officials, and project partners celebrated the opening of the City of Biddeford’s new parking garage located on Pearl Street on July 13, 2021, marking a milestone in the city’s ongoing downtown revitalization.
The parking garage will support parking needs for development of Biddeford’s Mill District, including the future mixed-use development set for the City-owned property on both sides of the garage as well as the Lincoln Mill and Riverdam Mill redevelopment projects already underway. It will also relieve the existing parking pressures in Biddeford’s growing downtown.
“The opening of the garage is a developmental symbol for the rejuvenation of our downtown and the emergence of the Biddeford Renaissance,” Mayor Alan Casavant said. “It is a foundational piece in the ongoing financial, cultural, architectural, and community investments that have been strategically made in the past few years.”
The garage features a gateless parking experience provided by Premium Parking. Residents and visitors can take advantage of contactless mobile payment options, including the Premium Parking app and options to pay by camera or text message. Traditional payments methods of cash and credit/debit cards are also accepted at pay machines. The garage will be monitored by 24/7 photo enforcement.
The City’s Joint Development Agreement with its project partners, Amber Infrastructure and Treadwell Franklin Infrastructure Capital, allowed the construction of the garage to be completed by PC Construction without the use of residential property tax dollars and with no impact on Biddeford’s tax rate. Instead, the City will contribute to the project through two sources: annual payments from the City’s Tax Increment Financing (TIF) revenues, which do not come from residential property taxpayers, and fee revenues collected from the operation of the parking garage and downtown surface lots.
Purchase a Monthly Parking Subscription for the Pearl Street Garage
Nights & Weekends Non-Reserved Parking: $35/month
Monday - Friday Non-Reserved Parking: $50/month
24/7 Non-Reserved Parking: $65/month
Parking rates double for reserved parking spaces.
Hourly Parking: $2/hour
Final Panel Placement Video (March 19, 2021)
PC Construction raised the final panel of the parking garage into place at a commemorative ceremony on March 19, 2021. This video showcases construction progress from the August 2020 groundbreaking to March 2021.
Background
At their September 17, 2019 meeting, the Biddeford City Council voted to authorize the City Manager to enter into a Joint Development Agreement (JDA) with Treadwell Franklin Infrastructure Capital and James W. Sewall Company (“Biddeford RiverWalk Community 1, LLC”) to build a downtown parking garage as well as complete the next phase of the City’s RiverWalk. The JDA outlined the project design, costs, cost sharing provisions, revenue projections, support payments, and specific protections for the City. The City Council reviewed the JDA on November 12. You can view the agenda for that meeting or watch the meeting.
The purpose of this project is to reduce the property tax burden for residents and provide parking for current and planned development in the downtown and Mill District. No property tax dollars will be used to pay for this project, and the tax rate will not increase due to this project.
The City's project partners designed, built, and will manage the parking garage. The City will contribute financially to the project through two sources. The first is through annual payments from the City’s TIF. Money in the TIF fund comes from sheltered property tax payments from businesses and developments in the Mill District – NOT from residential property taxpayers. The second source is revenues from the parking garage and parking lots. If parking revenues are less than expected, the City can make up the difference by collecting payments from surrounding properties in the Mill District, adjusting parking rates, or a combination of the two. If revenues are more than expected, the City will receive the benefit.
All on-street parking will remain FREE. Premium Parking will be managing the parking garage, as well as the public parking lots in the downtown area. You can learn more about how to purchase parking permits at www.biddefordmaine.org/parking or www.premiumparking.com.
A parking garage is important to our community to promote continued downtown and Mill District development. This matters to taxpayers because new development makes buildings and properties more valuable. More valuable buildings pay more property taxes to the City, which helps stabilize the property tax rate. The construction of the garage is expected to provide the City of Biddeford an additional $16,407,604 in property taxes in the first 10 years of operation and a benefit of $39,772,744 over the 25 year lifetime of the agreement.