As heavy machinery makes way for a new parking garage for lawmakers, some Concord residents and officials have wondered whether the new structure will help ease the pressure on downtown parking.

The answer, according to state and city leaders, has yet to be decided. As construction progresses, the two groups will negotiate two key policies: whether yellow bags used to reserve spots around the State House will decrease and whether the public will be allowed to use the new garage when lawmakers aren’t there.

“There’s probably always going to be some degree of bagging,” Department of Administrative Services Commissioner Charlie Arlinghaus said. “But I expect it would reduce some of the pressure on that.”

With complaints about the deteriorating condition and safety of their current garage on Storrs Street, New Hampshire lawmakers approved funding last year for a new one just feet from the statehouse at 33 Capital St., the site of what used to be the Department of Justice.

Designs for the project show a 409-space garage – nearly double the capacity of the current one on Storrs Street – with four floors of parking and a gray exterior resembling the State House Annex next to the capitol building.

The lawmaking session spans from January to May or June, and the legislature typically convenes on Thursdays, with committee work taking place throughout the week. The traffic study for the project estimates 27 days when all members will need parking.

Currently, each of the 400 representatives and 24 senators are assigned a parking location: 206 spots are currently available in the garage on Storrs Street and more than 100 spots at the legislative office building, according to the legislature’s chief operating officer, Terry Pfaff.

As a state property, the project needs no city approvals, but the state can run things by the city planning board for feedback. When that happened in February, some board members were anxious to see the yellow “reserved” bags reduced.

“You’ve got to move some of those people off of Main Street, off of Capitol and Park streets,” Planning Board Chair Richard Woodfin said of lawmakers taking up prime parking spots. “There’s no reason for them not to just park in the garage.”

Once the new garage is built, Woodfin also urged the state to ensure those assigned to park in a certain place actually do so.

“There’s a lot of people that don’t even park in the bags, they park in a regular spot with meters all during the day,” he said. “If you’re going to build it, make people use it.”

The board also had reservations about the thoroughness of the state’s traffic study, expressing concern about how tides of legislators arriving and leaving on session days might further back up commuters making their toward Main Street from Exit 14, and the intersections on Main, Centre, and North State Streets.

As many as 60 lawmakers receive reserved spaces — marked by the placement of a yellow bag over the meter — on the streets running beside and behind the State House, according to Pfaff. Some of those reservations are for state leadership, but the vast majority are for legislators with mobility impairments who make a formal request through the legislature’s health division.

Per a 1981 city ordinance, the state can make such reservations with the city’s consent, and city leaders haven’t yet indicated whether they’ll push to reduce the practice.

Downtown parking has to balance the needs of legislators, lobbyists and members of the public giving testimony with those of residents and others trying to access downtown businesses throughout the day, Mayor Byron Champlin said, Both, he emphasized, are important parts of Concord’s economy.

“I am in favor of anything that’s going to create more parking for downtown and for our merchants and for our people who are doing business,” he said.

When it comes to plans for the garage itself, local and state leaders share similar enthusiasm.

“It’s an exciting project,” Arlinghaus said. “We’re going to build something very attractive,” that is “both functional and aesthetically pleasing.”

With the structure occupying most of the city block framed by Capitol, Green, School and North State streets, vehicles would enter on School Street and exit onto Capitol Street beside the main pedestrian entrance, which would face the Legislative Office Building and State House.

Given that the garage is at the heart of the city’s historic center, the state was aware from the beginning of the pressure for a certain look in that space, according to Arlinghaus.

“We knew this has to fit in,” he said.

Project leaders told the Planning Board the garage’s design was inspired by surrounding buildings such as the State House, its annex and the Legislative Office Building. The board and mayor have both applauded the effort.

“Whenever anybody builds a parking garage, there are a couple of ways you can go; one is you can make it look like a parking garage, and the other is you can make it look like something else that might be more attractive than just a parking garage,” Champlin said. “I was gratified to see that the state took the latter path.”

Arlinghaus noted that the garage has the same architect as the new boiler house on Green Street — a project that both the city and state have pointed to as an aesthetic success.

The pink former Department of Justice building, currently being emptied and dismantled, will be fully demolished by June, according to Arlinghaus, and construction bids will take place this summer.

The current garage, built in the 1970s, stretches over Storrs Street via an “air rights” lease with the city, according Deputy City Manager of Development Matt Walsh.

It will be  taken down by the state once the new one is complete, helping to open up a space long-eyed by city leaders as the next frontier of downtown development.