It’s going to get a lot easier to find a parking spot in Dansville’s business district in 2025.
The former Dansville Fitness Club building at 5 Ossian St. was demolished this week to free up access to a new parking lot the village is planning to build this spring.
The parking lot will stretch behind the businesses on the east side of the central business district, essentially from Ossian Street nearly to Clara Barton Street, Dansville Mayor Barry Haywood said. The lot will create around 60 new spaces, adding substantially to downtown’s available parking.
“At this point there’s not a lot of parking on the east side of the central business district,” said Haywood. “It’s a very active area, particularly the gymnastics center. On Saturdays now it’s tough to get a parking spot on Main Street because so many kids are in there.
“This will open that up, plus it provides more room for our movie theater. They can park there, walk through the alley and get to the theater.”
A few of the new parking spots will be dedicated to apartments in the area, while about 15 businesses on Main and Ossian streets are positioned to benefit from the new parking. Among them is Tots Town, which opened earlier this year. The space specializing in kids’ activities and events is located next door to the demolished fitness center.
“We don’t have much parking. Between the laundromat and us we tend to have a lot of foot traffic,” said Tots Town owner Macayla Rodriguez. “A lot of the parking in Dansville is either on-street parking or back behind the police station, which means you have to cross a main street with laundry baskets and little kids. That’s really hard to do. So this parking space going back there is a really big deal.”
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Haywood said demolition of the building at 5 Ossian St. opened up the project by providing access. The property was donated to the village in 2024 after the Dansville Fitness Club shut down last summer. Village personnel will handle construction of the parking lot, further minimizing taxpayer expenses on the project.
“We’d like to get it done by late spring, but it depends,” said Haywood. “Our employees will be doing it so if you get a water break, it might take them out of commission for a while, but hopefully once we start the parking lot we’ll go quickly.”
This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Former fitness center demolished in Dansville. Why what’s next is ‘a big deal’ for village
Reporting by Chris Potter, Hornell Evening Tribune / The Evening Tribune
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