At the urging of Town Councilman Jim Collins, Smithfield solicited and received a cost estimate for turning the town-owned roughly half-acre Joyner Field into a public parking lot serving downtown.

Town Manager Michael Stallings, in a Nov. 6 memorandum to the council, said he’d had a “high level discussion” with engineers who estimated the parking lot would cost $568,580.

The price includes a 720-ton, 6-inch layer of Virginia Department of Transportation standard stone at $45 per ton, a 2-inch layer of bituminous pavement at $5,000 per parking space, 59 wheel stops at $250 apiece, $15,000 in landscaping, $75,000 for stormwater management, $50,000 in engineering costs and a 20% contingency budget, or $86,430.

Stallings estimates the work would result in up to 52 parking spots at the site.

“There is definitely a need for additional parking downtown, and there are very few locations that the Town could construct a public parking lot,” Stallings said. “If Town Council would like to pursue this further, the next step would be to authorize the Town Manager to proceed with having the engineering work completed.”

The council, however, deferred voting on the matter.

“A lot of citizens have approached me on this and about parking concerns downtown,” Collins said at the Nov. 6 council meeting.

Collins described the roughly $10,000-per-spot overall cost breakdown as “pretty average right now.”

Councilman Randy Pack said the cost is “better than a parking garage,” which he estimated would cost the town $30,000 per spot.

Access to the lot would be from Cedar Street. The field is located behind the former town manager’s office at 315 Main St., which the town now leases to When Pigs Fly Magic Happens gift shop.

“In the future there may be a possibility of eventually building a building there that would be above the parking lot, so they would consider that in their design,” Stallings said, clarifying that the half-million-dollar estimate is solely for the parking lot.

Stallings said using gravel instead of asphalt isn’t an option for reducing the cost.

“With the slope of that lot we would have constant maintenance issues if it was gravel,” Stallings said, stating town staff is “constantly having to fix washes” on another town-owned parking lot on Cedar Street.