NORTHAMPTON — Seven months into the partial closure of the crumbling E.J. Gare Parking Garage, the city is working to make up lost parking revenue, with the garage on pace to generate as much as $200,000 less this year than it did in 2025.
The top two of the garage’s five floors have been closed since March, when the city hired Hoffmann Architects to conduct a thorough examination of the structure. A report based on that study was completed in July and Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra presented its findings at the City Council meeting on Oct. 15.
At that meeting, the mayor said that the garage suffers from significant corrosion of rebar and spalling of concrete, a condition referred to as “concrete cancer.” She said the city plans to reexamine its parking inventory and the revenue that it brings in.
Since the partial closure, the city has spent about $9,000 a month shoring up and maintaining the structure. The closure has also cut the garage’s capacity from 430 spaces to 220, and its revenue has dropped sharply since March.
Between January and September 2026, the garage brought in $196,871, with a peak of $29,351 in January and a low of $18,163 in September. The city estimates that the garage will bring in between $248,000 and $284,000 by the end of 2026.
That compares to $449,000 in calendar year 2025, $469,000 in 2024 and $404,000 in 2023.
The city depends on parking garage revenue for about a quarter of its total parking revenue each year. When the fiscal 2027 budget was approved in June, the city estimated it would collect $1.75 million, a 15% increase in total parking revenue compared to fiscal 2026. Finance Director Charlene Nardi said the city will likely not meet its revenue projections for the fiscal year.
“[The garage] is only a portion of our parking revenue, not all of it. So, it looks like we are not going to make our revenue projections,” Nardi said in an interview. “We will be discussing how we’re going to make that up, whether it be in parking or in some other fashion — we’ll figure out how we will handle the loss.”
The mayor’s presentation to the council prompted questions and concerns about the structure’s safety, as well as the $18 million to $33 million cost range associated with demolishing and replacing it.
Chief of Staff Alan Wolf also brought forward data on municipal parking after the mayor’s presentation. Providing an overview of the garage’s peak hours and months, Wolf explained that he is trying to mitigate the “blow to the parking system” that the garage’s loss will represent.
“At 220 [parking spaces] you have to kind of cut this in half as you imagine what we’re going to collect for the next three quarters of this [fiscal] year,” Wolf told councilors. “It’s typically about a quarter of our parking revenue … in the new world, it’s about $20,000 a month — at $9,000 a month to keep Hoffmann keeping it safe, meaning we’re netting $10,000 or $11,000.”
Wolf noted at the council meeting that there are currently 1,600 parking spaces downtown, between on-street parking and parking lots. He said the garage typically only fills up during large downtown events or winter storms.
Sciarra said during the City Council presentation that she was working to finalize agreements with various parking lot owners throughout the city to use supplemental parking spots, helping to fill voids in both the city’s parking inventory and the revenue that comes with it.
At the 33 Hawley St. parking lot, for example, Sciarra said the city hopes to enter into a long-term agreement that would allow 70 spaces for public use. The mayor said she’s also been working with the owner and developer of the former Saint Mary’s Church site at the corner of Elm and State streets to obtain temporary use of 20 parking spaces for city employees along the State Street side of that project.
Additionally, Sciarra explained Valley Community Development Corp. offered the city use of its parking lot near 33 King St., the former Registry of Deeds building, while that spot is developed into housing.
Central Services Director Angie Gregory said Hoffmann Architects suggested the city either demolish the garage and create a surface-level parking lot with 110 spaces for an estimated cost of $3.3 million to $3.8 million, or build a full replacement of the garage for between $18 million to $33 million.
“We’ll be coming back to you once we figure out the next steps and come up with some direction, and then financing recommendations and to work on the plans that we’ll have to do together for this,” she previously said. “This is a big challenge — there’s no sugarcoating it. This is a big thing, but we are working on options, and we will come up with a solution.”
