Clermont council picks the City Hall lot for downtown parking garage, with about 400 spaces planned

Clermont City Hall, with vehicles parked along the adjacent lot, in a 2011 file photo of the downtown site chosen for the planned parking garage. Photo: Ebyabe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Resized; website wordmark added. Photo source · License

Clermont's downtown parking garage is going behind City Hall. The City Council voted 5-0 on Sept. 22 to build on the existing lot there, sending the project into preliminary engineering and procurement, according to a Citizen Portal account of the meeting.

The lot now holds a little more than 100 spaces. City officials said a garage on the same ground could raise capacity to about 400, WKMG reported. The competing option the special parking garage committee weighed — a site near Mineola Avenue and 7th Avenue — would have been a five-story structure with about 300 spaces, and the council declined to pursue it.

How Clermont's downtown garage got here

1. 2015

   Downtown Master Plan identifies a parking garage as eventually needed to support growth

2. Oct. 27, 2021

   Council sees concept for a four-story City Hall garage, about 350 to 360 spaces, estimated $16 million

3. June 25, 2026

   City posts RFP 26-106 for design-build services at two downtown sites

4. July 23, 2026

   Proposal deadline; bid listed as closed, with an Aug. 11 scoring meeting at City Hall

5. Sept. 22, 2026

   Council votes 5-0 for the site behind City Hall and moves to preliminary engineering

Source: sltablet.com; highergov.com; governmentbidhub.com; citizenportal.ai

What it means for the lot you park in now

Building on an active lot means losing it for a while. Amanda Walsh, owner of Cheeser's Palace Cafe next door to City Hall, backed the central site but told WKMG her staff and customers will lose those spaces during construction and that the business will have to work around it. Several other residents and business owners also supported the City Hall location.

What the city asked builders to deliver

The city's design-build solicitation, RFP 26-106, required teams to evaluate both downtown candidates: 705 7th Street, about 37,500 square feet, and the south City Hall parking lot adjacent to 685 W. Montrose Street, about 29,000 square feet. The RFP set a floor of at least 250 spaces per site and called for ADA compliance, stormwater management, public art opportunities and a minimum of eight Level 2 electric vehicle charging stations.

Proposals were due July 23, 2026, after the RFP was posted June 25, with a scoring meeting set for Aug. 11 at City Hall. The solicitation said the city could pick either location based on best value, feasibility, available funding, council direction and negotiations — which is the step the September vote resolved. Preliminary engineering for the City Hall site comes first, then the search for a contractor.

A decade in the making

The garage has been on paper since Clermont adopted its 2015 Downtown Master Plan, which flagged a structure as eventually needed, with a 2020 parking study prompting the council to evaluate sites, the South Lake Tablet reported. An Atkins Engineering concept for the City Hall parcel, presented Oct. 27, 2021, proposed a four-story garage of roughly 350 to 360 spaces at an estimated $16 million; that version did not advance. A citizens advisory committee revived the question this year with a 60-day review of city-owned options.