The Melrose Messenger

City Council To Vote On Renewing Parking Lease With St. Mary’s

By Ellen Putnam

The last week has seen a flurry of activity related to renewing the city’s lease with St. Mary’s of the Annunciation Parish for 53 parking spaces behind Main Street.

The parking spaces in question make up the majority of what is known as the Larrabee Municipal Lot, which is located between Main Street and Myrtle Street, and between West Foster Street and Grove Street. (The city owns a few spaces next to Giacomo’s, and the VFW owns a few spaces behind their building.) The city has leased these 53 parking spaces from St. Mary’s in their current form since 2017, although Father Shawn Allen of St. Mary’s noted that the city has been leasing many of the spaces since the 1950s.

While the Archdiocese of Boston represents St. Mary’s in negotiations, the income from the spaces goes directly to St. Mary’s and funds both the church and the school. “It would be devastating to lose that income,” said Father Allen. “$30,000 per year for us is like $3 million in the city’s budget.”

Last year, with significant budget cuts looming, the city inquired into whether they could be released early from the existing lease. For parish leadership, this called into question whether the city was committed to maintaining the relationship in the long-term, and caused them to begin considering other options for the space.

The issue came to a head this year when the most recent three-year lease, which was negotiated in 2023, came up for renewal. The annual rate for the entire lot had seen an increase from $30,000 to $35,000 in the previous lease, and this year, the Archdiocese proposed a new three-year lease with a yearly rate of $54,000, or more than a 50% increase over the current rate.

“We’ve been undervaluing the lot and just trying to be a good neighbor,” Father Allen said, “but when the city told us that they might not honor their agreement with us, we started looking into the value of the lot, and what we should be getting for it.” He noted that some parishes were charging $85 per month per parking space, which is where the $54,000 figure came from.

He also noted that, if the city chooses not to renew the lease, the parish would need to fence off the area in order to avoid possible issues with liability. While it is not clear what St. Mary’s might do with the space if the city were to stop renting it, it is possible that St. Mary’s could rent spaces to local businesses on an individual basis, or they could even sell the land to someone who would build on it.

The city rejected the proposed three-year lease at $54,000 per year, so the Archdiocese proposed a one-year lease at $42,000 (or $65 per month per space), which the mayor submitted to the City Council for approval this month.

While the Mayor’s Office recommended that the City Council approve this one-year lease, they appeared last week to be ambivalent about continuing the relationship in future years. “I think the city’s going to have to think very hard this year about whether this is a relationship that’s worth continuing,” City Solicitor Shannon Phillips said at last week’s Appropriations and Oversight Committee meeting, “given the drastic increases in rent that we’ve experienced.”

Phillips also noted that the city had proposed leasing only part of the lot, but the Archdiocese had rejected that suggestion. The city is responsible for maintenance of the lot, including plowing, which she estimates to cost approximately $16,000 per year.

After much discussion, the Appropriations and Oversight Committee voted to reject the lease agreement 3 to 4, with the following vote breakdown:

(A “Present” vote effectively counts as a “No” vote.)

While no residents spoke during public comment at the meeting, in the following days some residents shared their views on social media, with some expressing their support for ending the rental relationship and others expressing concern about the loss of 53 parking spaces behind Main Street.

Following the committee vote, the city and the Archdiocese returned to negotiations and came out yesterday with a new three-year agreement that would see costs increasing from $39,000 in the first year to $43,000 in the third year. This revised agreement will go before the full City Council next Monday (July 20th), and must receive at least 8 “Yes” votes in order to be approved.

The new terms of the revised agreement are likely to have some city councilors reconsidering their votes; however, the discussion from last week’s meeting provides some indication of each councilor’s thoughts on the issue.

Ward 6 Councilor Cal Finocchiaro, who represents this section of Main Street, remarked: “I don’t love it, but this does give us a year to make some decisions about the path forward and what we’re going to do. It’s only a $7,000 increase, which is on the same trajectory as $30,000 to $35,000 in the previous lease. We are elected by the residents of this community, and I feel like it would be detrimental to them to pull away 53 parking spaces without giving them time to discuss it.”

“It bothers me that we lease parking from anybody,” reflected Councilor At Large Ryan Williams, “because we obviously don’t do that in other locations. There’s no resolution to this land use issue. They could, and have demonstrated a willingness to hold it hostage and just say, ‘What are you going to do? You’re going to kill half the parking for Giacomo’s?’ If they’re not going to sell it to us, if there’s this risk behind it, maybe we should just do away with it now and live with the consequences and find the solution now, rather than try to see if maybe next year they’ll be amenable to a better deal.”

“I’ve been monitoring this lease since I was elected,” added Councilor At Large Maya Jamaleddine, “and every year we say, ‘Next year we’re going to get a better agreement. Let’s renew one more year.’ And I don’t see an end to this.”

Councilor At Large Elizabeth Kowal argued that, while $42,000 might not seem like a large amount compared the city’s entire budget, “in a town like Melrose, it is a lot. We did get an override this year, and we’re putting a lot of money out there,” she said, “but there are still a lot of people in town who are very concerned about their money, and just because we have the money now does not mean that we need to go and spend it unless it is for a very valid reason.”

“I agree that this whole negotiation feels uncomfortable,” said Councilor At Large Jason Chen. “We feel that we have an obligation to support our shop owners and not surprise them by ripping parking away from them. But I feel like we’ve gotten backed in.”

City Council President Brad Freeman countered: “I think that the responsible thing to do right now is to give this another year to let this play out in public so that residents and commercial owners are aware that this parking may go away, and allow them to voice their opinion on it, but also to let the church know that we’re serious about this. I do think, if we lose 53 spots, even if those spots aren’t full every day, the trickle-down effect of that on all the other parking spaces in the city is going to be profound.”

“I’m not comfortable potentially not putting this forth because of the ramifications of that parking for our businesses on Main Street, which could be pretty severe,” added Ward 3 Councilor Christopher Park. “I think the rate that we got for this year is reasonable for what we have, and it gives us some time to convey this and communicate it to the businesses that use that lot, and at that point, we can determine what the next steps are.”

Ward 5 Councilor Kim Vandiver indicated that she would like to hear more from residents who would be affected.

Writing to the City Council on behalf of the Melrose Chamber of Commerce, Executive Director Stephanie Nelson said: “These spaces are vital not only to the success of neighboring businesses but also to the well-being and accessibility of our community. Adequate parking is a cornerstone of Melrose’s economic vitality, helping local shops, restaurants, and services thrive while ensuring residents and visitors can easily enjoy all our city has to offer.”

While the Larrabee Municipal Lot is most convenient to that block of Main Street (which includes Giacomo’s, Petrone’s Pizza, the VFW post, and Hugo’s Appliance), visitors are also likely to park there to visit other nearby businesses when other lots are full.

The city published a downtown parking study in 2012, which indicated that the Larrabee Municipal Lot was often less than 80% full, although it was over 90% full on Saturday afternoons and evenings.

Overall, the study concluded, “the downtown parking conditions do not warrant expanding the parking supply. Rather, minor adjustments to the management system to better manage demand for parking should suffice to address the issues observed in downtown. If, in the future, Melrose finds itself with significantly increased demand and is considering expanding supply, priced parking should be implemented prior to costly capital investment in garages or other additional supply measures.”

Melrose does not currently have paid short-term municipal parking. It is not clear that the revenue from paid parking would recoup the costs of enforcement, although paid parking might encourage more residents to walk to downtown or park farther away. The parking study also proposed a few low-cost measures, including reconfiguring the parking lot behind Memorial Hall (which has not yet been implemented).

This year, the Mayor’s Office proposed a free cash expenditure of $70,000 to update the downtown parking study. The City Council voted down this proposal, 9 to 2, with some city councilors arguing that they did not believe downtown Melrose has a parking problem; others attributing parking scarcity to a lack of enforcement of existing regulations, rather than a lack of parking spaces; and still others arguing that Melrose should be looking at encouraging more people to walk or bike downtown instead of driving.

Residents can share their views with their city councilors or speak during public comment at the City Council meeting on Monday, July 20th at 7pm at City Hall.

Posted July 16th, 2026