Easton Buys Downtown Parking Lot

Easton will pay $120,000 to purchase a private Downtown parking lot in order to give the city more public parking.

City Council voted Wednesday night approve the purchase from Scott Kindred, who has owned the N. Fourth Street lot since 2010. 

The city had been prepared to seize the property through eminent domain, but agreed last month to negotiate with Kindred. 

“Eminent domain can be pretty tough, and it’s a vote I didn’t necessarily want to make," Councilman Jeff Warren said.

Kindred said in an interview Wednesday that the offer was $50,000 higher than what the city had first proposed.

At Wednesday's council meeting, Panto noted that Kindred and his wife had come into Easton for dinner on a recent Saturday and had been unable to find a place to park, "so he knew first-hand we need parking.”

Kindred said the mayor had stressed the need for downtown parking in their meeting, explaining how Easton would lose one of its surface lots when the intermodal building construction begins.

“Once we were talking it made sense," Kindred said.

He'll use the money from this sale to build a four-unit townhome on Stewart Street on the city's South Side. Kindred said he purchased the property in 2008, but shelved the idea when the economy began its slump.