Mobile Arena raises parking concerns, city officials say not to worry
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — New aerial renderings of the Mobile Arena, set to seat 10,000 people, are raising the question of where people will park.
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However, Mobile officials told News 5 there is nothing to worry about as each year they take in hundreds of thousands of people for Mardi Gras.
'We deal with it every year,' City of Mobile Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Snowden said. 'We get people in, and we get people out.'
John Gwin lives across the street from the construction site.
'I could've thrown a rock and hit the civic center,' Gwin said.
He is worried that his neighborhood streets will take the impact of overflow parking. He hopes the city will turn the roads to only one-sided parking.
'A lot of the streets are not wide enough for particularly a fire truck to get down,' Gwin said.
Snowden said with the addition of the new parking garage, downtown Mobile will have roughly 7,000 parking spots available. That would be through garages, street parking and surface lots.
'We foresee people using Uber, staying at a hotel and using their parking spaces,' Snowden said.
Snowden said the city would love for each event to pack out the Mobile Arena, but they can't guarantee that for every event, so they feel like traffic will be more than manageable.
'With any big event, MPD will be there and also working with ALDOT; we can foresee those challenges and kind of mitigate those ahead of time,' Snowden said.
News 5 also asked about the large green space in the renderings that could be used for more parking. Snowden said the area could be used for future development of the property.
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The parking garage is expected to be complete by July.
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