Where to park it
Recommended parking options for this weekend’s events in downtown Gainesville:
Mule Camp Market: Hall County parking deck on the corner of Spring Street and E.E. Butler Parkway and the Main Street parking lot during the day.
Special Fall Gospel Singing, Georgia Mountains Center: Concertgoers should park in the Main Street lot across the street from the center. Overflow parking will be available in the Town View Plaza shopping center parking lot across Jesse Jewell Parkway. The city will provide a shuttle service from that lot to the mountains center.
In a last-minute announcement, Gainesville officials said Thursday the city’s new downtown parking deck will not be ready for patrons at this weekend’s Mule Camp Market.
The three-day festival opens today on Gainesville’s downtown square, with more than 150 vendors along with live music, children’s activities and a petting zoo.
Event organizers plan for thousands to attend, but because of problems with construction of Gainesville’s downtown parking deck, visitors will have to park in Hall County’s deck and at smaller lots near downtown.
This weekend’s festival has been sort of a second target date for the completion of the reconstructed Georgia Mountains Center parking deck. The deck was originally scheduled to be completed months ago.
Construction on the deck recently was said to be in overdrive, with work running well into the evening and on weekends. Yet no one would say for sure whether the deck would be ready in time for Mule Camp Market.
Contractors originally were supposed to have the reconstructed parking deck completed in July, but a wetter-than-average spring
delayed contractors’ efforts at pouring a foundation for the four-level deck.
Representatives from Optum Construction, the company managing the deck’s construction, told city officials last month that it would be completed enough for Mule Camp patrons to use.
But Thursday, minutes before the city’s police department began to close roads for the three-day festival, the city’s public information officer, Catiel Felts, announced that the $6.85 million deck would not be ready in time after all.
"They’ve tried really hard, but they just can’t get it done," Felts said.
Now city officials are urging festivalgoers to park in the Hall County parking deck on the corner of Spring Street and E.E. Butler Parkway.
Once visitors do find a place to park, Mule Camp organizers promise this year’s festival won’t be run-of-the-mill. Jaemor Farms is returning to the event after a hiatus of several years, along with plenty more food, crafts and amusements to keep visitors busy.
Josh Trawick, a member of the Gainesville Jaycees who helped organize the weekend festival, said this year’s market will include live entertainment from area musicians tonight and Saturday night.
Though the daytime market is free, organizers will charge a $5 cover charge for those who come for the evening entertainment after 7 p.m. The Jaycees will also sell beer and wine during the entertainment, and for the weekend, open containers will be allowed on the downtown square.