By Kevin Coughlin
If you think it’s hard getting a seat to popular shows at the Mayo Performing Arts Center, try finding a parking space.
That’s been the lament of the theater, which on Wednesday crept one step closer to solving its dilemma by securing permission to use a Verizon lot on Oak Street for “overflow” parking.
At a meeting that ran until about 1 a.m., the Morristown zoning board unanimously approved a variance to allow this special use of the lot, which sits in a residential neighborhood on the edge of the town’s Historic District.
Although the gated lot can accommodate up to 150 cars, the theater, a block away on South Street, anticipates 75- to 100 cars will be the average, said town Zoning Officer James Campbell.
Show patrons will pay $5 to use the lot, after displaying their show tickets to staff members of Advanced Parking Concepts, a Verona company that will manage the operation for MPAC.
Actually, the company’s been managing the operation for months–and got cited for it, along with Verizon. Residents reported the situation to the town council late last year.
A summons was issued on Feb. 1, 2016, because commercial parking is not allowed in residential zones.
That summons, which could have brought hundreds of dollars in fines, will be dismissed as a result of the variance, Campbell said.
Residents spoke in favor of the parking arrangement on Wednesday night. Verizon activated a card-controlled gate earlier this year, after neighbors complained that unruly patrons of downtown bars were using the lot on weekends.
When the lot was created in the 1950s, Campbell said, the town stipulated that it only could serve employees of Bell Telephone, Verizon’s predecessor at the site.
MPAC President Allison Larena was not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
With more than 200 shows a year, the 1,300-seat nonprofit theater is a major economic engine, attracting 200,000 patrons who pump an estimated $14 million into the area’s economy.
For some performances, the theater has operated a shuttle to the 700-space municipal deck on DeHart Street, less than two blocks away. But spaces there are growing scarce, Campbell said.
And Larena has told the town council there is no comfortable waiting area for show patrons using the garage.
The Presbyterian Parish House on South Street also has provided a few dozen spaces for some shows.
A year ago, town officials said they were eyeing municipal Parking Lot 10, about a block from the theater, behind the Post Office, as the site for a new parking deck. It’s envisioned as part of a larger development. So far, no projects have emerged for that location.
