Parking problems continue in southern Cape Coral

The City of Cape Coral may start to see a light at the end of the tunnel for the parking problems downtown, and the final draft of the South Cape Parking Management Plan might be the solution to it all.

But these problems aren’t new.

In fact, David Fulkerson, the owner of Diamond Dave’s Creative Jewelry, has seen downtown’s parking issues since he first opened almost 32 years ago.

“We’ve always had a problem with parking in the backyard, especially since we have a lot of people because the city owns the back parking lot,” he said. “A lot of people just park their stuff there for like two, three, four, five, six days, and they take up spots for a long time, but it’s gotten so busy down here. We do not have enough parking. Not at all.”

However, according to research done by engineers and planners of the South Cape Parking Management Plan, there is enough parking in the city.

Over 7,000 parking spots are available. The problem is where the spots are located.

“People come here, they’re looking for parking and can’t seem to find anywhere to park, so sometimes we miss customers because of that,” said Paul Chalkis, who works at The Greek Spot.

Customers like Costin, who has lived in Cape Coral for nine years, said he still struggles to find parking anytime he wants to go downtown, especially with the construction in the area.

The final draft of the South Cape Parking Management Plan was created to remedy some of these parking concerns.

The engineers and planners recommended clearer signage for parking and building a parking garage near Cape Coral Parkway East.

And business owners agreed — a solution needs to be made and soon.

“A parking garage would help with that tremendously, being that we could stack cars. We definitely need something to change,” Chalkis said.

“We do not have enough parking for all these people coming down here, so we need a parking structure,” said Fulkerson.