Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of NexusPark in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024.
City officials have apologized after a large event this week at the Circle K Fieldhouse at NexusPark resulted in attendees jamming up parking in the area, including at nearby businesses that were not involved in the event.
Officials said they also have identified a couple other events scheduled at the fieldhouse this year “where we know that parking will be an issue” — including the upcoming Our Hospice concert and a sports tournament — and plan to provide shuttle buses from designated spillover parking areas.
The parking issues this week stemmed from IU Columbus commencement ceremony at the fieldhouse, which drew a crowd to honor the 170-student graduating class and resulted in attendees filling up the parking lots of nearby businesses.
“I apologize to those businesses where we had people parking this past week with the IU Columbus commencement,” said Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon. “I know that’s an inconvenience. …We’re still kind of in the evolutionary stage of getting NexusPark up and going. Again, I know it can be difficult for the neighbors, and I apologize for that.”
Ferdon said the city will be offering to make signs for neighboring businesses so that attendees know that they are not allowed to park in those business’ lots. She said she has talked with the Columbus Department of Public Works to develop a couple design templates for the signs that officials plan to take to nearby businesses next week.
Most large events at the fieldhouse have taken place on nights or weekends when Columbus Regional Health’s facilities and the park department’s offices at NexusPark are closed, freeing up parking spaces typically used by patients and staff.
However, the commencement ceremony was held on a weekday, with attendees competing with CRH patients and staff and parks department staff for parking spots.
Additionally, 96 parking spaces at NexusPark are currently closed as lot construction continues, officials said. Columbus Park and Recreation Director Mark Jones said refilling and striping on those spaces is expected to take place in mid- to late- June.
Jones, for his part, said, “we want to be good neighbors” and “try very, very hard” to ensure that event organizers know where attendees are allowed to park.
“(At) Lincoln Park, there is quite a bit of parking across the street … (but) some people still want to get as close to the fieldhouse as possible,” Jones said. “There still might be more parking on the other side of the fieldhouse, but everyone is trying to park as close as possible to that area.”
The parking issues this week come about six months after city officials said they had a “learning curve” on how to handle parking for large events at the fieldhouse after a wrestling tournament at NexusPark coincided with a softball tournament across the street at Lincoln Park, creating a parking space shortage which sent visitors into private business parking lots without prior warning.
Jones said city officials and consultants “spent a lot of time and effort” working to put together a parking plan for NexusPark. But at the same time, city officials received authorization to reduce the number of required parking spots at NexusPark, according to city records.
In March 2022, the Columbus Redevelopment Commission voted to hire design firm MKSK to complete exterior master planning, design and construction documents, including, among other things, parking lots, The Republic reported previously. The initial contract, which also subcontracted engineering firm Strand Associates Inc., was for $426,500.
In November 2022, the Columbus Board of Zoning Appeals approved a request by the city to lower the minimum number of parking spaces required at NexusPark by roughly 500 to allow for the construction of a roughly 2-acre outdoor park on a portion of the existing parking lot.
In its application for the request, the city calculated that it would ordinarily be required under local ordinance and other rules to provide 1,477 parking spots at NexusPark but sought permission from the board to provide as few as 975 parking spaces.
The city provided a site plan with 1,001 parking spaces at NexusPark, but the plan was still being refined at the time of its application, and “the request to allow as few as 975 spaces is intended to account for these further site plan revisions,” according to a staff report by the Columbus – Bartholomew County Planning Department.
The board approved the city’s request as submitted.
Jones said Friday that once the 96 additional parking spots are open, he believes there will be “around 1,200” spots at NexusPark.
In the application, the city argued that NexusPark “lends itself to a unique approach for evaluating the parking requirement code” and based its request on a “data-driven analysis.” More specifically, the city contended that the hours of operation of the facility’s three main tenants — Columbus Regional Health, Columbus Parks and Recreation and NexusPark Community Development Corp. Veritas tenants — do not significantly overlap with each other.
“The prime operating hours wherein the bulk of visitors using parking for CRH visitors will not be the same prime operating hours for the Columbus Parks and Rec. Fieldhouse and programs, and the … tenant spaces,” the city states in its application.
In addition, the city states in its application that many of the facilities at NexusPark are unlikely to be used at maximum occupancy, including the child watch area, the large multipurpose room, meeting rooms, pre-function space and fieldhouse.
“While occupancy (at the fieldhouse) allows for 3,007, we have calculated a maximum expected use of 2,146 occupants based on having an eight-court basketball tournament,” the city states in its application. This includes two teams per court, staff, officials, coaches and filling up all the spectator seating. We would anticipate less, as the maximum spectator occupancy would mean that every player brought 5.4 spectators with them. When calculating attendance at these events, typically it assumes 2.5 spectators on average (not 5.4).”
Based on that estimate, an event with 2,146 occupants would require around 859 parking spaces, 116 fewer spaces than the minimum number of required parking spots and 341 fewer than Jones’ estimate of spaces that will be available once lot construction is completed.
Jones said city officials knew they were going to lose parking capacity to build the outdoor park but added some additional parking spots to try to compensate.
“The plan from Day 1 was bringing in some green space into this facility,” Jones said. “That was our ultimate goal. Did we lose parking? Yes, we knew we lost parking. But we also added some parking in certain areas that weren’t there.”
The site plan included in the city’s application in 2022 shows plans to provide 80 additional spots than would have been otherwise required on the north side of the property, on either side of the fieldhouse. The staff report also states that Lincoln Park, which has around 532 parking spaces, could be used for overflow parking for NexusPark.
However, city officials acknowledged that some nearby businesses’ parking lots are closer to the fieldhouse than Lincoln Park. It is unclear if attendees would be willing to park farther away and cross 25th Street.
Ferdon said city officials won’t fully know what the parking situation will look like for large events at the fieldhouse until the 96 additional parking spots are available.
“With those (roughly) 100 spaces still offline, we don’t know what it’s going to look like for a large event,” Ferdon said. “What we need to do is really have that next large event and see how many parking spaces are we actually short. The difficulty of trying to create parking lots or parking garages (is) we don’t need it but just a few times (per year).”
“We’re going to be better neighbors,” Ferdon added. “We’re going to work with signage and keep our neighboring business informed about what’s happening. We’re going to get those parking spaces open, and then we’ll have a better idea of what the next steps should be.”
