New Spring Street Parking Lot Nearly Complete

A new parking lot will soon be open at the corner of North Maple Avenue and East Spring Street in Cookeville.

County Mayor Randy Porter said crews completed the gravel work for the lot on Wednesday.

“The next step will be paving the parking lot. We hope that will happen within the next week, weather permitting,” Porter said. “We will do the striping, parking bollards, and curbing once the paving is completed. Hopefully, if everything goes well, we’ll have the parking lot open sometime around the first of November.”

The Putnam County Commission voted to purchase the property for $210,000 a little more than a year ago. Porter said the parking lot will provide about 55 new spaces for the justice center.

“The justice center traffic continues to increase,” Porter said. “It will also help when we have special events going on around the square, like Fall Fun Fest and Cooking on the Square. It’s only a couple blocks to walk up to the square from the parking lot, so we think it will help with that also.”

The county awarded bids for demolishing two buildings on the property in December 2018.