By: Cara Latham
ALLENTOWN Driving up and down the street looking for a parking spot may be a normal way of life for residents and those familiar with the borough’s busiest drag, but for local merchants, it can mean a loss of business.
That’s why a few of those business owners recently approached the Borough Council to see what can be done to alleviate parking problems along the borough’s Main Street district.
One factor involves the two-hour parking limit signs that some say appear to be ignored by both police and those parking there. Another involves the need for more parking perhaps behind Main Street’s businesses, between Lakeview Drive and Waker Avenue.
The parking issue is evoking mixed emotions among business owners who have varying opinions as to what can be done to fix the problem, Stephanie Lipnicki, president of the Allentown Business Community Association, said last week.
For Ms. Lipnicki, who owns Natural Alternative to Well Being, if customers come in for a 90-minute massage, in the time it takes to get inside, get situated and get the massage, they will have exceeded the two-hour parking limit. By the time they are done, they won’t have time to visit the district’s other shops, she said.
One the other side of the issue, there are cars that park in key spots along the street that may prevent customers from just running in to get a quick cup of coffee at Hoffmann’s Bake Shoppe or from buying stamps at the post office, she said.
"You have people camping out there overnight, and not obeying the parking limit or staying there two days at a time," she said. This can hurt business because people will just keep driving and go somewhere else, she said.
Her husband tells her that when he leaves for work in the morning, and doesn’t see any open parking spaces in front of Hoffmann’s, which may happen as often as twice a week, he’ll continue driving and stop at Wawa for coffee, she said.
"Maybe he’d only spend five dollars…but add that up over the course of the year, and that’s a significant loss in the big picture," she said.
Annelise Hoffmann, owner of the bake shop, said she is well aware that this happens, causing her to lose business.
"Parking is just so tight around here," she said. "It would be nice of the town could do something for us."
One suggestion offered by some owners is to stagger the parking, to create different parking limits along the street that cater to each business’s needs, Ms. Lipnicki said.
For example, in front of Woody’s Town Café, perhaps the parking limit should be extended for more than two hours, since it can take someone longer than that to enjoy a meal there. In front of places like the post office or the bakery, 20-minute parking limits can be placed from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. so that people can run in quickly to do their errands and leave, she said.
Ms. Hoffmann said she would like a designated commercial parking area in front of her store, but also suggested that any parking limit outside of her business which currently has none would enable customers to more easily run in and out of her store.
Mayor Stu Fierstein said Monday that the Borough Council discussed the business owners’ concerns at the last Borough Council meeting.During the July 3 meeting , the council discussed creating parking not only while the bridge on Main Street is closed for construction later this year, but during normal day-to-day activities, he said.
Mayor Fierstein acknowledged the varying opinions on two-hour parking and said that eliminating the limits would be detrimental to business.
"We were having people who were carpooling and parking throughout town and leaving their cars, and catching rides," he said. "That was taking the entire day of business away from businesses."
But there are other perspectives as well mainly the idea of that public lot between Lakeview Drive and Waker Avenue. Karen Deets, owner of Off the Wall Craft Gallery at the Old Mill, is one proponent of this idea.
"It’s a necessity to the economic survival of this town to address the parking issue," she said. "We had been told by the mayor at a Borough Council meeting at least a year ago that (the mayor) was also in favor of addressing the parking issue, specifically developing a parking area that runs parallel to the Main Street business area," an idea Ms. Deets said seems viable.
But as for the two-hour parking, she said, she has always been strongly against that because she feels it discourages tourism in town.
"We can’t stay in business just depending on local residents because it’s a small community," she said. People who travel from a distance, up to two hours away, come here as a destination to enjoy shipping and dining and "you certainly can’t do that in two hours."
"What I really want to see them do is develop a parking area that’s accessible to the downtown," she said.
Brian Swal, owner of Allentown Village Hardware, said while "it’s a tough call" to find an exact solution, "we really got to address it as a town, as a whole," he said.
He said parking was the number one issue affecting business owners there, and that it’s even hard to cross the street sometimes.
"We’re looking forward to the town talking to us and seeing if we can resolve it," he said.
Regarding the proposal for parking behind the Main Street business, Mayor Fierstein said business owners, in most cases, are the property ownersand can establish parking on their own lots behind their properties.
In addition, borough officials are trying to help business owners get some type of grants to fund more parking.
"We’re recognizing that property owners that have businesses are struggling," he said. "We’re trying to make this as painless for them as we can."
Still, "we’re not the property owners. You can’t expect the borough to improve private property with public money."

