THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603290214
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: BY EUGENE A. DENISON
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
For the past 18 months, the Downtown Suffolk Association Committee, looking at various issues surrounding parking in the Central Business District, usually referred to as downtown, identified several areas of concern including employee, resident, short-term client/customer, and long-term client/customer parking. All are competing for many of the same spaces.
After years of dealing with these issues, DSA members have a thorough understanding of both the actual and perceived problems with downtown parking. Since the first consideration of the courts complex, they have tried - and failed - to gain a hearing from the city staff and the engineers responsible for planning parking facilities. They feel that it is still not too late, and that if the city would carefully consider their ideas, it would avoid a very costly mistake.
It had been assumed that, with the extended usage of the existing parking lots, plus new projects that are coming on line or are planned, a parking garage would be included in the court complex plans out of common sense and necessity. Instead, the Court Complex Advisory Committee chose surface parking. According to the staff, the decision was based on a cost differential of $10,000 per space. They told the DSA that a surface parking space costs $2,000; a parking garage parking space, $12,000.
The municipal parking lot that existed behind Penney's and Woolworth's and extended to Bank and Main streets contained 228 places (including the Franklin Street lot.) In the past, that entire lot was filled during pre-holiday periods. With less retailing, the usage declined. But with the huge influx of workers to the old Leggett building and the clients that they bring downtown, the demand for parking spaces exceeds the supply.
The part of that lot that remains at Main and Bank streets was promised to the DSA (by the Planning Department) to be reserved for customers. However, the city makes no attempt to enforce that, and the lot is filled to capacity at 8:30 a.m. with all-day parkers, and there are cars parked illegally all over that lot.
Throughout the CBD, other cars are parked in private spaces, church lots, bank lots and apartment building lots. The violators are hindering retail businesses by occupying customer spaces and causing inconvenience for many more people. The present configuration is helping destroy the image of downtown.
The city could have and should have planned differently. It was told of these potential problems long before they materialized.
A recent study by the DSA shows there is a need in downtown for at least 300 short-term and long-term parking spaces in municipal lots. This figure includes only the businesses that surround or are affected by the Commerce Street municipal lot.
If we subtract the Saratoga Street lot, which has 55 spaces, downtown retail and professional businesses need 255 spaces in the Commerce Street municipal Lot. This lot will be part of the courts complex, and, according to the plans, will contain a total of 365 places.
The planning is to Meet the Code, which means to supply all the parking spaces that will be needed by workers and visitors of the Courts Building. That need was said to be 300 places - just for the Court Building.
If the people who are already in business in downtown can demonstrate an actual need for 255 of those spaces, how can the architects from Richmond and the city staff say that, ``Everything will work out''? It can't. No more than one car will fit into one place.
Does the city have to tear down those buildings on East Washington Street to make room for the court parking lot? Of course not!
Professional urban planners say that it never makes sense to tear down buildings to create parking spaces. Doing so eliminates the buildings, which eliminates real estate taxes, business and professional license fees, the city's share of sales tax revenues, housing, jobs, and the compactness that make downtown successful.
If the Courts Building turns out to be a boost to the downtown economy (one of the principal reasons for its location there) then values will increase around the court complex. Those very locations on East Washington Street that are now targeted for demolition then will become more desirable, the rents will increase, the taxes will increase, etc., and more revenue will flow to the city.
If a parking garage were to be built, it could be financed by a Parking Authority, which would issue revenue bonds to be paid off from income. There would be long-term parkers in addition to daily and short-term parkers. On the first floor, there could be leaseable retail space that could include service businesses such as a dry cleaner pick-up, news stand, etc., that would produce additional revenue. In addition to the direct revenue from the garage, statistical studies have shown that a single parking space available to shoppers will produce $22,000 in sales each year.
In making its original decision to abandon the concept of a parking garage, the city apparently failed to do an honest cost-benefit study. Had it factored in the costs outlined above, plus the cost of demolition, and now the cost of litigation, as well as the benefits from the garage and of leaving the buildings intact, it would have surely decided on the garage.
Another important factor is the perception issue that city hall's statisticians ignore. People like to be close and within sight of their destination when they park. They feel that their walk is shorter and they are safer. A parking garage with an entrance that could be reached from North Main Street would add to that feeling of security.
City Hall keeps telling the DSA that the Cherry Street lot will serve the needs of their customers, clients and employees. That lot is fine for the businesses on the South Side of West Washington Street, but not for anyone on North Main Street, or even on North Saratoga Street. Their understanding of customers is nonexistent if they think a customer will walk two blocks from an isolated parking lot to shop on a normal day, let alone when it's cold, raining or dark.
I would ask the City Manager to send his wife next December at 4 in the afternoon to shop at Denison's and then ask her to walk in the cold and darkness to a car that she has to reach by walking through a mini park and then through a narrow passage between the downtown overpass and the deserted rear of a building. Her total walk would be almost two blocks to an unpopulated lot. If she were carrying packages, would she ever want to repeat that trip? MEMO: Mr. Denison, a downtown business owner, lives on Arcanum Lane, Suffolk by CNB