Downtown Parking Master Plan - On Monday evening (May 1) the City Commission will consider the final adoption of a long-awaited master plan to govern the development and administration of our downtown parking program. The Commission has already seen presentations on each of the four phases of this study effort, and will be seeing the final plan for approval. The plan contains 41 specific implementation items, from adopting a priority map for needed parking inventory to where and how parking should be for-pay vs. free. One of the proposals is to do a pilot test on a portion of Main Street of a to-be-determined system (meters, pay stations, etc.) to test the effectiveness in turning the spaces over and practicality of operation. Up for discussion - what about meters on Main Street? Should the city charge for parking right on Main and make it cheaper or free farther away to encourage use of places like the 2nd Street garage, or should it remain free on Main? What about the Main Street retail employees who take up the customer spaces, and resist parking places like 2nd Street or Orange Ave.? Any opinions out there?
posted by Michael McNees at 2:18 PM
14 Comments:
I have never been a supporter of parking meters and parking tickets because I think it creates a negative identity for particular locations.
I also think it could be necessary for key spots such as Main Street. The reason I would support the idea of meters for Main is because there are many parking garages and parkint lots surrounding the core of Main at Lemon Avenue. So, you should be able to park free in the lots but for the convenience of parking right in front of a store you should have to pay. It should also only be one hour on Main so it is for those running in and out. The lots should be for the visitor staying longer.
We do need better signage for the lots.
Also, you should not charge in areas that do not have sufficient parking because it is just not fair. If the city does not provide enough parking for people to shop an area then the area and its visitors should not be punished for it. These areas should not be given parking tickets either. How can the city justify giving tickets to people that have no place to park? Burns Court area is a great example of this and sort of St. Armands.
While we make some things a priority the business growth of our downtown depends on sufficient parking and the city needs to make this a priority before businesses start moving out and then we are back to a declining city again.
Overall I think Lemon Avenue area is the only area getting sufficient parking and look how it is helping.
beamer - You're making great points, and a lot of those questions are what the background study/philosophies of the parking master plan are about - I plead guilty to oversimplifying the question for purposes of the blog, and wanted to put on a link to the entire document, but could only get a link to the last draft of phase 4, and didn't include that since it's somewhat obsolete.
Even given the fact that much of that context has been studied, there is another truth you point out, which is that many only engage these processes at the final implementation stage, when the decisions become "yes or no" hence seem simple, i.e. "meters or no meters." I fear my question as I phrased it contributes to that!
Marsha, signage is something we're looking at in a really comprehensive way, stay tuned for more of that because the potential for some really positive improvement comes with that.
beamer - no offense taken at all, I thought you made a good point and I intended to be a bit self-critical regarding my oversimplfication.
I think the consultants have looked very carefully at parking strategies, but can't say as hard at related traffic patterns or some of the other things you mentioned - I have to take another look at the study.
The parking plan I saw cost approximately $11,000,000 to administer over the first ten years. I think the money would be better spent building two parking garages downtown. We may need more staff at City Hall, but not to administer parking programs.
Mike, I have an idea. Someone else probably already thought of it, but here it goes. One of those garages could be built on the existing City Hall parking lot site. It makes perfect sense. The site is sandwhiched by two streets which would allow ample ingress and egress, the site is centrally located in the downtown core, and the land is "free". What's more, liner offices could be constructed to create much needed space for city employees and even more city hall office space could be provide above. This would allow all city offices consolidated from the federal building back onto one City Hall campus. The federal building can then be sold or leased to the County to offset the cost of construction. Who knows, maybe you could even build some affordable housing above the levels of parking. The site should be big enough for 500-600 cars, which would go a long way to solve our "problems".
The parking study was done a few years ago and showed the parking needs even before all this new growth. Our needs are now greater than five years ago. The city needs to not let the parking needs of this city be put on the back burner because the vitality of our business districts is what makes a downtown or at least one of the high priorities.
I am also concerned about the Pineapple Square group hurting the great restaurants we have downtown. It seems they want everything their way at the expense of everyone else. The city should no way give up any public parking to this group and all parking should remain open for all. The city should not give up the State Street lot until the new parking facility is open to the public. Really we should just build our own parking structure on the State Street land and be done with it.
Marsha - Hopefully you'll be happy to know that the study that's being presented to the commission today is current, based on recent inventories of supply and estimated future demand, and it is very much on the front burner.
Hi Dale,
I agree that we should protect Sarasota School of Architecture buildings where ever possible. However, City Hall has been butchered so many times, that even Jack West himself has said to me personally that "there is little resemblence to his original design". This is because there has been several additions to the building, including at least two that Jack did not oversee, the long step fountain has been filled in, the underside of the building has been filled in, the landscaping scheme has been completely changed, and so much equipment has been added as to completely disrupt the roof lines on all sides of the building. And I haven't even mentioned the 3-story "Annex Building".
That being said, you are right that the building should still be respected and maybe a parking garage would not work. But I think that the parking lot is far enough away from the building as to not impact it negatively, and besides, most parking garage designs already resemble Sarasota School style architecture. (Just kidding.)
My main point is that spending $11M on parking staff, consultants, office space, etc. over the first 10 years of a plan, with not a penny going to the creation of even one new parking space, is not the best use of our tax dollars. Further, putting the majority of parking burden on all new projects, while requiring no contributions from existing building owners, is not an equitable means of fixing the problem.
Dale,
I forgot about the Whole Foods parking garage, there does seem to be a large concentration of parking enhancement efforts in that small portion of downtown. I really did not think of it that way. Perhaps a better place would be down on Lower Main. I just think we need to build garages rather than departments at City Hall.
We had some conversation the other night about where the City Hall area fits into the priority tiers for new parking identified in the study. That definitely needs to be evaluated based on current conditions (which are somewhat different than when the original data was collected), and the bottom line is it doesn't make sense to put parking where it's not needed, or needed the most, we all agree there.
Shawn, you've made a couple of references to spending a lot of money on new departments, and I don't understand the reference. The parking M.P. talks about a new department, but it's mostly pulling things together that are already being done in different departments today, with only one new staff person proposed, and as the parking program builds out someone will have to manage it. What am I missing that you've seen in the report or elsewhere?
Mike,
When reviewing the material provided us prior to the PB Mtg at which this was discussed, I noticed some cost estimates of the proposed program. One particular table in the study featured an itemization of costs broken down for years 1 through 10 of the plan. I asked the consultant specifically about what made up the approx. $11M, and if that included the creation of any additional parking. He responded by saying that this cost included no parking only administrative and operational costs. I no longer have the parking study, but I think the costs were largely payroll ( I think he said there was going to be seven new employees initially, then three more) and then there was the expense for various capital items, and some debt service for the meters each year. If something has changed on this, or if I misunderstoof something, then I am sorry for my comments.
Do you remember that time in the lobby where I asked you how much a parking garage would cost to build? That was the time I was studying this plan, and I thought then, as I do now, that $11M could almost cover the cost of two parking garages so why not use the money in that manner. The garages would also have a faster and more meaningful impact on our problem.
I certainly did not mean to sound critical of you or your staff. I believe the City does great work, considering the obstacles which seem to always pop up, and the grief Staff gets from the public. If I was in your shoes, I would not hesitate to hire 10 more people and put most of them in the Building Department! (Code Compliance and Permitting) I have no issue with the City Staff growing; I just think that starting a whole new department is not the best course of action.
Also the plan seems to me to be a penalty for new development with no responsibility for the problem being shared by existing projects. Further, I fear the on-site parking requirement, a new requirement for small projects, may result in ugly building designs and alley congestion.
Shawn - I didn't take any of it as critical, I was just trying to get the reference. I suspect a some of those dollars are maintenance-related, I'll take a closer look. Over 10 years the number makes more sense.
Dale - That's been a very popular question this week, probably because the commission just looked at that part of the budget.
Every year the different city departments compile the projects they are aware of for review by a staff committee that ranks them based on a priority matrix for consideration by the City Commission (which took place this week). Projects make that list from a number of places; from our adopted master or capital plans, based on departmental needs recognition, from the neighborhood action strategies or other neighborhood requests, etc. For the next fiscal year the City Commission has just reviewed that project list and signed off on a list of projects to tentatively include in the '06-'07 budget. Things that come to us now, or have come recently, will be put into that pipeline for next year.
There is one wrinkle that is unique this year, and that is the scheduled CRA/CRAAB planning meeting that is scheduled for June where priorities for the tax increment monies for the next 10 years will be discussed. I suspect that for that meeting we will try to identify not only the available funds but everything we have a record of that has been requested or discussed for that money so far.
Based on requests that come to the city from members of the community, we could spend many times over what we have available in capital revenues on worthwhile projects, and that is one of the real challenges the commission has, to allocate those dollars every year.
If I haven't answered your question let me know, and there may be some unusual circumstance that I didn't cover, but that's basically how it works.
Gretchen - bobby's right, I forwarded your question to PIO Jan Thornburg and she assured it would be taken care of.
dsg - Hopefully you'll be happy to find out that improved signage is on the way, both in the short term for downtown parking, and on a much larger scale on a city-wide basis with the development of what the planners call a "wayfinding" system, which is a coherent, well executed, themed (or "branded") signage system telling people how to get around, something some cities have done very well. We are not one of those cities - yet!
Wow.
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