There will soon be an additional 54 parking spaces for downtown Cortez.
When Montezuma County purchased and moved some of its offices into the former First National Bank Building at 140 West Main St., the county knew it would need to add parking spaces to the site.
County Administrator Ashton Harrison said the cost to the county for the additional 54 parking spaces was a little more than $114,500, and it hired Elam Construction Inc. to do the work.
Harrison said the parking lot was always part of the plan when the county purchased the bank building earlier this year. The additional parking would allow customers easier access compared to parking in the county building lot at 109 W. Main St. and walking across Main Street.
Most of the work involved Elam Construction removing the drive-up teller window that the bank had been using.
We knew we had to have more parking than what the bank had, Harrison said. We knew there was a cost and knew what to expect.
The construction company is currently paving the parking lot, and this work was expected to be completed by the end of last week.
He also said the paving and striping are the easier parts of the parking lot project that started about two weeks ago.
Before the paving, Elam Construction had to repair and work on the curbs and gutters while making the building handicapped accessible, Harrison said.
Harrison said the striping on the paved parking lot likely will be completed sometime next week.
Reach Michael Maresh at michaelm@cortezjournal.com