Garage apartments developer OK’d to lease parking spaces from city

Columbia City Council has approved a lease agreement to provide parking spaces for future tenants of a developer that plans to build apartments above city garages.

Hallmark Homes International Inc., which plans to build a 22-story, 250-unit apartment building atop the seven-story Lady Street parking garage, will lease up to 425 tenant parking spaces from the city in the Lady Street and Washington Street garages. The developer will also lease 125 rooftop parking spaces in the Lady Street garage for use during construction.

The development group, led by Columbia developer and investor Don Tomlin, is to pay the city a monthly fee for the construction spaces at the same rate charged for similar construction spaces, according to the lease agreement.

Eventual tenants will pay the city’s standard tenant parking rates to park in the garages.

The majority of the spaces leased to Hallmark will allow tenants to park 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the Lady Street and Washington Street garages. About 100 spaces in the Lady Street garage will be available to tenants from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. Monday through Friday and at all hours on weekends and city holidays.

In June, the city signed an agreement with Hallmark authorizing the development group to explore building apartments atop as many as six city-owned parking garages downtown. The Lady Street garage is the first to be developed.

This story was originally published August 18, 2015 at 9:44 PM with the headline "Garage apartments developer OK’d to lease parking spaces from city."