Eureka, HTA Study Grant to Build Downtown Parking and Convention Center

The Humboldt Transit Authority and the City of Eureka are jointly studying whether a state grant could finance an eight-story parking tower with a top-floor convention center at the corner of Third and G Streets in downtown Eureka. The question driving the feasibility work is not just whether the building can be built, but who pays if it cannot cover its own operating costs.

HTA Deputy General Manager Katie Collender confirmed the agency hired a consultant to produce preliminary conceptual designs and assess financial viability. The work is targeted at qualifying for a Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP) grant, the same competitive funding stream that awarded the nearby EaRTH Center more than $12 million last December. That state program, financed through California's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, imposes two hard requirements on applicants: demonstrable reductions in vehicle miles traveled, and a credible plan for operational cost neutrality. Both thresholds must be cleared before a formal application can be filed.

The cost-neutrality bar is where comparable projects have broken down. Oakland's downtown convention center and attached garage collected roughly $3.3 million in fiscal year 2022-23 but ran up more than $4.4 million in operating costs, leaving a $1.1 million annual gap that its operator asked the city to cover. Whether a convention facility in Eureka, a city of roughly 27,000, could generate enough event bookings and parking fees to avoid the same outcome is the central question the consultant must answer.

City Manager Miles Slattery framed the project as transit infrastructure rather than a downtown economic amenity. "That's a big component of the grant that they'll be going for," Slattery said, referring to the vehicle-miles-traveled requirement, emphasizing the structure's intended role as a park-and-ride hub. The pitch to the state rests on a first-mile/last-mile logic: commuters park once in the structure, then board an HTA bus, bike to Cal Poly Humboldt, or rideshare to the Arcata-Eureka Airport for the rest of their trip.

The proposed site sits directly across from the EaRTH Center parcel, where Danco Communities is partnering with HTA to build a four-story, 46-unit affordable housing and regional transit hub on the south side of Third Street between G and H Streets, with construction expected to begin this spring. The parking tower would serve as a complementary piece of that corridor, though the two projects carry separate financing and separate timelines.

What remains unresolved is the operating model: whether parking fees, convention space leases, an HTA subsidy, or some hybrid of all three could realistically cover annual costs year over year. No alternative funding source has been identified if the TIRCP grant is not awarded. The feasibility study must confirm revenue viability before HTA and Eureka can commit to a formal application, and by Collender's own framing, that study remains in its earliest stages.

For downtown hotel and restaurant operators, a functioning convention facility could lift weekday occupancy and midweek covers in a market that has historically struggled to draw conference-scale business. But if operating costs exceed revenue after the grant runs out, the liability does not stay with the state. It lands on HTA, the City of Eureka, and ultimately the people paying to park there.