NATCHEZ &045; Businesses are losing customers because of a parking squeeze in the central downtown shopping district, Tammi Gardner told Natchez aldermen Tuesday.

&uot;Two things are going on,&uot; said Gardner, director of the Downtown Development Association.

Those two factors are new businesses opening on the 100 block of North Commerce Street and the loss of general public parking at the lot entered from South Union Street across from Memorial Park.

That block of Commerce Street has been a favorite place for downtown business owners and employees to park, she said. &uot;Obviously, the new businesses don’t want people (who work downtown) parking there.&uot;

Britton & Koontz Bank has leased the large church-owned parking lot off South Union Street from St. Mary Basilica for bank employees, Gardner said.

She recommended the board look into parking problems with an eye to the future.

Alderwoman Joyce Arceneaux Mathis, whose ward includes downtown, asked for a meeting to be scheduled with her to include also the city attorney, city planner and city engineer. &uot;I’m aware there is a problem with parking,&uot; she said.

Meantime, Gardner wants to bring back to business owners’ attention a plan devised in the 1990s to locate spaces near the shopping district but not on the main commercial blocks.

&uot;We took two-hour limits off certain areas to make non-timed parking available within a one- or two-block area to the main business arteries,&uot; she said. She has distributed information about those parking spaces to downtown businesses.

&uot;I know there are 30 to 40 spaces consistently never used that are maybe two to three blocks from the main part of downtown,&uot; she said.

Gardner wants business owners to remember the Zion Chapel AME parking lot, owned by the city, on the corner of South Rankin and Jefferson streets; the parking available behind the Natchez Convention Center; and the several spaces at the Council Chambers parking lot off South Commerce Street, for example.

&uot;We also need to be sure the trolley is running consistently. Some people who do not leave their businesses all day may be willing to park at the visitors center and ride the trolley from there,&uot; Gardner said.