Fairhope adding downtown open dining spaces

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FAIRHOPE – The city of Fairhope is opening more spaces for outdoor dining in an effort to bring people back downtown.

The Fairhope City Council voted Thursday, May 28, to place picnic tables and tents in public areas in an effort to encourage people to come back downtown after many restaurants and other businesses were closed in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. Jessica Walker, director of community development, said that while restaurants have been allowed to reopen, the limit of 50 percent capacity hinders economic recovery.

Under the plan, the city will place picnic tables and umbrellas on public areas, including the Fairhope clock property at Section Street and Fairhope Avenue and in front of the city Welcome Center. City officials will also put up tents with tables in the municipal parking area next to Julwin’s Restaurant.

“We could encourage people to come downtown, get their takeout, stay in town, go into our galleries, go into our shops and spend their money,” Walker said.

Councilman Kevin Boone said the city needs to take action to encourage shoppers to come back to the Central Business District.

“I have no problem with anything we can come with that will help this city get going and open up,” Boone said. “My deal is try anything we can try and if it doesn’t work out, we can shut it down and try again. But the main objective is to get this city back open.”

Walker said the plan is a continuation of the “Fairhope is Open for Business” campaign that began in March.

“The Fairhope is open for business message really does resonate now, maybe even better than in March for that one day that they were closed,” she said. “We want to help revive that campaign and we want to get people downtown to infuse life in our city again.”

The campaign began as an effort to bring visitors downtown while the movie “Map of Tiny Perfect Things,” was being filmed in March. Just after the movie was filmed. Gov. Kay Ivey issued a “Stay At Home” order on March 19.

“We did that as an effort to bring people downtown while we were closing streets,” she said. “We wanted people to be in our restaurants and we wanted people to shop and feel comfortable being downtown. The day that we rolled that out was the day that COVID kind of hit our town if you will and we started shutting things down.”

City officials had proposed that restaurants be allowed to use public parking spots in front of their locations to expand outdoor dining areas.

Walker said that after police and other city officials discussed that proposal, they decided that placing tables near traffic would not be safe.

Mixing that vehicular and pedestrian traffic and parking spots – we have grave concerns about doing that, but we don’t want to just step on an idea because we have concerns about it,” Walker said. “What we came up with was something a little bit different, that would help resolve that public safety threat to a level that we’re all comfortable with.”

She said allowing more outdoor dining space should help all businesses downtown.

“We know that rising tide lifts all boats and giving people the option of dining outdoors, even if it isn’t in the original idea that we had, it’s in the same field,” Walker said. “It will keep them in our central business district. It’ll keep them ready to shop and ready to go in galleries.”

The plan will also allow restaurants to designate one parking spot in front of the business for customers to pick up orders.

Councilman Jimmy Conyers said the plan should help the city.

“I think that’s a good plan,” Conyers said. “I understand that taking up parking spaces that may be directly in front of the restaurant presents some other hazards and safety concerns. I appreciate y’all working through that and coming up with something and I don’t know how long the 50 percent occupancy’s going to be in effect, but I think that anything we can do to help would be appreciated.”

Walker said the plan will cost $9,720 for tables, tents and other equipment. She said most of the materials can be used for other purposes when the effort is complete.

“Those picnic tables can be reused in our parks,” Walker said. “The patio umbrellas and stands can be reused for Farmer’s Market, also for future events. The same thing with the tents. It would behoove us to have those tents in possession.”