The Bloomington City Council will decide how to move forward with plans for the Fourth Street parking garage during a meeting Wednesday night.

The City Council is considering approving $18.5 million in tax revenue bonds to demolish and reconstruct Fourth Street parking garage. The 352-space garage is slated for closure January 1 due to the structure’s deteriorating condition. If approved, demolition will begin in April.

The city is proposing a seven-level garage with up to 550 spaces. Preliminary plans also call for multi-use levels, which can be converted into apartments or retail space.

Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton says he wants the city to replace the garage before the construction of the nearby convention center expansion.

"Five years from now we're going to have a convention center built around it, were going to have a much more built up environment," Hamilton says. "And then closing a garage is much more painful for everybody if you don’t have what we have right now, which is quite a bit of surface lot area right near it to be overflow."

The council has postponed a vote on the garage since October to determine if repairing the structure would be a more cost effective option.

Other council members are worried that the current proposal has no height limitations and if approved, developers may design a garage of a much larger scale later on.

The public also offered mixed opinions on the proposal.

Downtown residents and business owners largely supported the project expressing their need for additional parking. Others urged the council the move away from car dependency and opposed constructing a facility that increases carbon emissions.