Any discussion of Main Street Newark always includes parking.The latest dust-up was spurred by a story in the Newark Post about owners of Iron Hill Brewery and Restaurant not ruling out a departure from their Main Street location, due to parking issues.
Nothing is imminent since the current lease runs for some time.
Frustrations with parking are building. It is not unknown for surface lots to be filled. A traffic-clogged one-way Main Street can make the search for parking difficult if lots are packed.
Something needs to be done now, since any solution will take years to implement.
Iron HIll owners, meanwhile, have wrestled with an adjacent parking lot that is always filled.
They face the reality that drivers, like myself, are eternal optimists who believe that last space will suddenly appear.
Most of the time, the answer is a short walk from a paid lot. Every once in a while, parking becomes an exercise in frustration.
Still, we have seen far too many social media observations from cranky couch potatoes who feel they are entitled to parking next to their favorite restaurant or have not been to Main Street in years. Never mind that their walk won’t be that much further than a trek through a mall parking lot.
It’s also the price of success for a Main Street that a few years back was named one of the nation’s best.
Memories have faded of that time a couple of decades ago when Main Street had a bigger problem, vacant retail space and a deteriorating appearance.
At that time, Iron Hill became part of the wave of investment that turned around Main Street and allowed us to complain about parking.
How soon we forget.
