IDAHO FALLS — With events such as the Idaho Falls Farmers Market, Alive After 5 and a list of other seasonal events, the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation (IFDDC) is working to make downtown Idaho Falls a place where people want to spend their time and their money.
“It’s exciting, and I don’t know if you’ve been to the farmers market or the live concerts we have on the Green Belt Riverwalk. Those happen on Tuesdays and now Alive After Five out of the Idaho Falls Civitan Club has moved. It was in the center of downtown, but now it’s moved on to the Riverwalk as well, and those are just growing with more people,” said Kerry Hammon, the executive director of the Idaho Falls Downtown Development Corporation.
The downtown events IFDDC is organizing are varied, with something for just about anyone to enjoy. Hammon listed a few, in addition to the concerts.
“But we have far more events. IFDDC, we put on 20 events each year in downtown,” Hammon said. “I’m big on local music, (but we also) have summer brew, we have spring brew, we have Oktoberfest. I’m Irish, so Patty’s Day on Park is my absolute favorite event. And then Halloween, I love dressing up for Halloween.”
Not all of the events IFDDC puts on are targeted strictly toward adults, though. The organization also holds an Easter season event, where children can search for Easter Bunnies around businesses downtown.
“We work with the businesses down here and we plant little Easter Bunnies in the restaurants so the kids have a chance to participate too, and come down here as a family, go shopping,” Hammon said. “The intent of our events is to get people downtown.”
Outside of the events, IFDDC has also worked on beautification efforts for downtown spaces adding flower pots, hanging flower baskets, or lowering the street lamps to give the streets a more comfortable feel and get people to slow down and enjoy the space. The goal is to make downtown Idaho Falls a different, better experience.
“We work alongside the city to enhance beautification efforts to events, do things that bring the community downtown,” Hammon said. “And then of course, we have a portion of it that focuses on tourism too, and capturing those dollars and keeping them downtown.”
The organization’s efforts have generally been successful, maybe even too successful. With more and more people coming downtown, parking management is becoming an issue.
“So what we are working on now is improving our parking management and our enforcement, Hammon said. “So that’s what’s about to roll out in October.”
The new proposed system will be an app-based parking meter.
The app will function like regular parking meters, without traditional meters clogging up the sidewalks. The purpose of the paid parking is to try and get a higher turnover rate of people arriving and leaving downtown. If you’ve been downtown recently, you’ve probably noticed parking is very limited in some places.
Currently, on-street parking is limited to two hours, but the introduction of the app will bring a four-hour paid parking limit. The first hour will cost $1, hours two and three will cost $2 each, and hour four will cost $10. After the four hours expires, downtown visitors will receive a $20 citation. The app will alert users when their time is going to expire.
The four-hour limit was chosen to give downtown visitors enough time to go to dinner and see a movie for example, but still allow for adequate turnover of parking spots.
Hammon compared it to turnover in a restaurant. Having every table filled is a positive thing, but there needs to still be a system in place to allow for new people to arrive. The same idea applies to downtown parking.
The organization aims to keep parking in downtown affordable, to not dissuade people from coming downtown in the first place, but with the hope that the new parking system will encourage shoppers to make space for others trying to come downtown.
Free parking will still be available in the parking lots between the railroad tracks and Yellowstone Avenue, and visitors who don’t want to use the app will still be able to use the pre-existing paid parking lots already downtown.
The area where the parking changes will occur is pictured below.
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