New Parking Garage Coming to Downtown Portsmouth?

Just when you thought the idea of building a new parking garage downtown was all but dead for this year, a new parking garage proposal is now in the works.

According to a memo that City Manager John Bohenko wrote to the City Council on Tuesday, Chris Thompson of HarborCorp LLC, the Sheraton's development company, contacted the city manager to let him know they plan to present a proposal to the Planning Board sometime in June.

Their proposal calls for the construction of a new 650-space parking garage, 40,000 square feet of retail space, a 12,000-square-foot conference center, and 98 new hotel rooms, according to Bohenko's memo, which he provided to Portsmouth Patch on Wednesday morning.

"There are a couple of important aspects of this development. He has offered to have the City lease 150 of the spaces for public parking. In addition, the conference center will be able to seat for dinner 800 people. As you are aware, there is no place in Portsmouth that has this capability," Bohenko wrote in his memo.

The Sheraton's proposal is happening at the same time city officials have proposed building a two-level parking deck on the Parrott Avenue municipal lot, which has met with great resistance from South End neighborhood residents.

In December, plan after that proposal met with fierce resistance.

Bohenko said Wednesday morning that he had no comment on the Sheraton's parking garage and conference center proposal. More details about the proposal will emerge when Sheraton officials file their plans with the city Planning Department sometime next month.