LITTLE GEMS
Paid parking resumes in about two weeks in downtown Lake Geneva.
The paid parking issue is about to be visited again by all who park on Lake Geneva streets, whether residents or visitors. Recently, the city approved a parking rate increase for weekend parking. Currently parking is free, but as of February I, 2023, every stall for weekdays will be $2.00 an hour, but $4.00 an hour on weekend days. This has many business owners upset, and they are concerned what this weekend increase will do to their bottom lines because of a decrease in traffic to the city. Winterfest will be a busy traffic week in Lake Geneva, and parking for this event will be a test (although not necessarily accurate) as to how the increase is likely to be accepted. The parking on slower non-event-filled winter weeks will tell a better story as to what affect the increase will have. Discussions about parking frustration and payments have been consistent topics among locals and city officials alike for as long as Lake Geneva has been a busy tourist destination with paid parking.
The rate of parking is not the only issue, as the lack of parking availability has also become a major problem. Some, including the Business Improvement District President Spyro Condos, have discussed the potential of adding additional parking areas and using a shuttle service to take visitors back and forth from the business district to their vehicles. One of the discussed locations for such a parking lot is on the recently purchased Hilmoor property, but how soon could this happen and at what cost? Other locations have been mentioned, along with a possible parking garage. Nothing has reached the point of being voted on by either the plan commission or the city council, however.
Coffee shops today.
What happened to coffee shops? Remember when you went in and coffee was quickly made, hot and ready to be treated with many different flavors or additives for free on a side table? Now, we wait interminably for people in front of us to have five-minute ten-dollar concoctions created and dispensed, plus we are relegated, with your cheap small hot coffee cups to a counter that no longer has anything on it to add except the required cream and sugar? What happened? Oh, I’m sure there are coffee shops out there that provide more stuff but the photo here of a local shop in town just about describes the barren, cold and service less offerings of today.
Person of the Week
Karen Patton, servicing agent for Lake Geneva.
