real estate

In 2021, Boston planners approved more parking spaces than homes – StreetsblogMASS

by Deena S. Hawkins on March 17, 2022

According to year-end statistics compiled by the Boston Planning and Development Agency (BPDA), Boston city planners have approved dozens of construction projects in 2021 that could give the city 7,887 new homes, 6 million square feet of new commercial space and enough parking to store 8,668 more cars.

Nearly three-quarters of this new parking lot — 6,441 spaces — would be built in transit-accessible neighborhoods within a quarter-mile of an MBTA station.

During 2021, the BPDA approved 71 new development projects which include a combined total of 17.1 million square feet of real estate within the city limits.

Most of these new projects include a housing component, either in purely residential apartment buildings or in mixed projects:

BPDA 2021 project approvals for mixed-use and residential developments

“TOD” indicates “transit-oriented development” – projects located within a quarter mile of an MBTA rapid transit or commuter rail station. Source: BPDA


Purely residential projects	Total	in TOD	% TOD
Number of projects	29	12	41%
Housing units	2,352	1,226	52%
Parking spaces	1,114	481	43%

Mixed-use projects	Total	in TOD	% TOD
Projects	29	20	69%
Housing units	5,535	4,550	82%
Residential Square Feet	5,305,476	4,390,132	83%
Commercial sq.ft.	2,503,372	1,364,697	55%
Parking spaces	3,620	2,615	72%

Of the 29 purely residential developments the BPDA has approved in 2021, developers plan to build 2,352 new apartments and 1,114 new parking spaces – roughly one parking space for every 2 apartments.

But among the subset of 12 subdivisions that would be within a quarter-mile of an MBTA rapid transit or commuter rail station, the parking ratio was slightly lower: a total of 481 new spaces. parking space for 1,226 apartments (approximately 0.4 spaces per dwelling unit).

StreetsblogUSA: Apartments with free parking reduce transit ridership

The BPDA also approved 29 mixed-use projects in 2021, and collectively those projects could give Boston about 5,535 new homes, 2.6 million square feet of office, retail and other non-residential space, and 3,620 parking spaces – approximately two parking spaces for every three apartments. However, it is likely that some of these parking spaces will be reserved for the commercial tenants of these buildings.

Compared to previous years, the parking ratio per dwelling for residential and mixed-use projects has decreased.

In 2019, the agency approved 4,762 new homes as well as sufficient parking for 4,773 cars in residential and mixed-use projects – approximately one parking space for each apartment.

In 2020, this ratio fell slightly, to around 0.9 parking spaces per dwelling.

Boston planners approved more than 11,000 new parking spaces in 2020

However, BPDA non-residential project approvals in 2021 had significantly more associated parking than in previous years.

The agency has approved 10 office and laboratory projects as well as three institutional projects that collectively propose to build 3,934 new parking spaces:

BPDA 2021 Project Approvals for Commercial and Institutional Developments

“TOD” indicates projects located in transit-oriented neighbourhoods. Source: BPDA

Purely commercial projects
	Total	in TOD	% TOD
Projects	ten	8	80%
Total square footage	2,178,420	1,934,233	89%
Parking spaces	2,454	2,368	96%
Purely institutional projects
	Total	in TOD	% TOD
Projects	3	2	67%
Total square footage	2,282,252	1,816,150	80%
Parking spaces	1,480	977	66%

In 2019, the BPDA approved 9 commercial or institutional projects with 2.4 million square feet of space and only 237 new parking spaces. And in 2020, the BPDA approved 2.3 million square feet of non-residential projects that collectively had only 200 attached parking spaces.

The increase in non-residential parking garage approvals this year can be partly explained by the types of applicants seeking BPDA approvals in 2021. While many non-residential projects in 2019 and 2020 were associated with universities, which tend to have lower parking demands, the BPDA’s program in 2021 included two large hospital expansions that insisted on spending health care dollars on large on-site parking lots.

One of the largest institutional project approvals this year was the Massachusetts General Hospital Expansion near Charles Circle. This project proposes to build a massive six-level underground parking garage for 977 cars next to traffic-congested Charles Circle in Boston’s West End (the project would also help build a proposed new subway platform for an extension of the MBTA blue line).

A handful of projects the BPDA has approved in 2021 would avoid building any on-site parking. The Boston Housing Authority final phase of the development of the HLM Old Colony districtwhich the BPDA Board approved in April, would replace 208 existing apartments and add an additional 134 affordable apartments in three new buildings with no off-street parking at the east end of the neighborhood, adjacent to Moakley Park.

And in Jamaica Plain, a short walk from the Green Street Orange Line stop, the BPDA has approved a new 5-story building (see rendering at the top of this article) that would provide housing for 38 low-income senior households. , plus a new street-level dining space for the El Embajador restaurant.

However, the owners of the adjacent Turtle Swamp Brewery sued to block this accommodation, specifically citing its lack of parking in their complaint.

Partly in response to lawsuits like that, the BPDA and the City of Boston passed two significant parking reforms late last year that could further reduce the number of parking lots that future developments can build.

End DecemberMayor Wu signed a new zoning ordinance that will eliminate minimum parking mandates for residential projects where at least 60% of new homes would be limited income for low- and middle-income households.

And in October, the BPDA passed new planning guidelines that will impose maximum parking limits for large developments, with stricter limits applying in the most walkable and transit-accessible areas of the city.

Parking spaces

🌱 Two dead in bed fire + lawmakers oppose parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on March 1, 2022

Hello, brooklyn! I’m your host, Patrick Murray here with three new stories to start your day.

First, today’s weather forecast:

Partly cloudy with highs of 49 and lows of 40.

Here are the top stories in Brooklyn today:

A young mother and her toddler died of injuries sustained in an apartment fire early Tuesday morning. 9:49 a.m. March 1, FDNY firefighters responded to a fire at 6 Agate Court, and were greeted by heavy smoke and fire issuing from the brownstone. Three victims were pulled from the fire, including the 22-year-old mother and her 1-year-old son. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. (NAMI)
Park Slope Council Member Shahana Hanif doubled down on her demand, along with other Brooklyn lawmakers, that developers stop building parking lots in new buildings. The letter sent to the planning agency, endorsed by Hanif and nine other local leaders, cited climate change and the need for more affordable housing as key concerns. These lawmakers argue that the city would be able to build more affordable housing, reduce carbon emissions and create additional commercial space if it reduced the minimum parking requirements. (Room)
Sydney and Michael Hursa, owners of Synful Eats, announced the expansion of their delivery service to Brooklyn and Queens. Their sophisticated candy delivery service has been hugely popular in Manhattan and the Hamptons and will now be available to residents of Brooklyn. Synful Eats supports Every mother matters, an organization dedicated to the safety of mothers during pregnancy and childbirth. by donating 1% of its total profits. (NAMI)

From our sponsor:

Today’s Brooklyn Daily is brought to you in part from our friends at GoodRx – the best way to save money on your prescriptions. GoodRx helps you locate the lowest prices for drugs at local pharmacies, so you don’t pay too much. Also works for pet medications! To see how much you can save, go to GoodRx.com.

Today in Brooklyn:

First discoveries, Brooklyn Botanical Garden. (10:30 a.m.)
Elton John Happy Hour at fourth avenue pub. (5 p.m.)
Traditional Slow Jam at old stone house. (6:15 p.m.)
Live music at Brooklyn Steel. (8 p.m.)

From my notebook:

BAM brooklyn announces a stellar spring lineup! (instagram)
Brooklyn Community Foundation Spark Prize Breakfast in just a week! (Facebook)
RSCP here for the Brooklyn Annual Meeting Harbor Ring Tower. (Facebook)
Brooklyn real estate overview. (Brooklyn patch)

More from our sponsors – please support the local news!

Featured companies:

Events:

Do you like the Brooklyn Daily? Here are all the ways you can get more involved:

That’s all for today! See you soon.

— Patrick Murray

Parking garage

Downtown parking lot heads to market | Local News

by Deena S. Hawkins on February 2, 2022

The Lavery Transportation Center – the parking garage in downtown Fairbanks – will go on the market following a decisive vote by the city council on Monday evening.

The vote, 4-3, with Mayor Jim Matherly breaking a tie vote, cemented a debate that the garage should go on the market even if there were no buyers. Matherly and council member Aaron Gibson, the ordinance’s sponsor, said the ordinance requires the structure to remain a parking lot once it’s sold.

Gibson, along with board members Jim Clark and Lonny Marney, supported the garage’s listing. Councilors June Rogers, Jerry Cleworth and Valerie Therrien opposed it.

The five-story, 360-space garage was built in 2002 with a combination of federal and state grants. The city must sell it for at least $2 million to repay the feds, or keep it as a parking lot.

In 20 years, its operation cost more than it brought in revenue, according to financial reports. With depreciation, it cost the city $5.4 million over two decades; omitting depreciation, the city still lost $1.8 million, as expenses exceed revenues.

David van den Berg, executive director of the Downtown Association of Fairbanks, asked the council to reconsider its decision.

“This is a critical access feature for downtown businesses,” van den Berg said. He said a quick survey of association members asked what the city’s overall plan would be for downtown parking.

“We believe this order is premature,” van den Berg said.

The city could market the center better, he said, or pitch it as an opportunity to find a new contractor to run it. Selling it, he said, would have ripple effects.

“Parking is a system and if you dislodge part of it, then something is going to happen to street parking that you should think about,” van den Berg said.

Cristina Ackerman, who runs a small business on Second Avenue, said parking remains a major issue.

“There just isn’t enough parking space that I could park a vehicle in and leave it there all winter day,” Ackerman said. “The people I serve also need parking and sometimes it can be difficult to find street parking for them to use the parking lot.”

Jeff Jacobson, director of public works for the city, in his capacity as chairman of the board of directors of the Fairbanks Parking Authority, said the garage has performed well over the past few years.

“Over time, the parking authority found more ways to generate revenue and reduce expenses,” Jacobson said. A new kiosk center will be installed later this year to facilitate entry, exit and payment.

He acknowledged that efforts to market it have been lacking, but the parking authority will implement further measures. Jacobson asked on behalf of the parking authority to delay putting the garage up for sale to conduct a thorough study.

Jacobson added that with the planned demolition of the long-empty Polaris Building, he can see a brighter future for the parking lot.

“You will have prime real estate once the building is demolished and having parking across the street will be attractive to a developer,” Jacobson said. “I could imagine air bridges connecting the two buildings and using it as a central business hub.”

Council member Jerry Cleworth, a volunteer member of the parking authority board, agreed with Jacobson.

“It has the potential to make more money, but it needs to be marketed,” Cleworth said. “The reality is that I don’t know anyone who would bid on it because I don’t see how you would make any money long term once it becomes a taxable entity.”

Councilor Valérie Therrien said she would like a full study of the building’s value and sale parameters before holding a vote to sell it.

“See What It’s Worth”

Matherly expressed his own opinion on the sale of the garage by the city.

“I don’t think the government should own a retail place like this,” Matherly said. “We subsidize this thing and it’s costing the city a lot of money…we don’t have the people to run it or market it all the time.”

Matherly acknowledged his sale was slim for 2022, but said it was worth exploring.

“I think someone could do a lot better owning it and managing it,” Matherly said.

Gibson, like Matherly, wants to see who might be interested in buying the garage.

Gibson added that $1.8 million lost over 20 years in maintaining the building could have benefited more from the city’s permanent fund.

“I think it’s a great opportunity to see if anyone in the community wants to come out and buy it,” Gibson said. “We can still invest to improve it, because it will attract a potential buyer.”

Councilor Jim Clark added that the function of the structure will not change.

“This is a parking lot and will remain a parking lot, the only difference is whether we want to be in charge or whether a private entity takes over,” Clark said.

Parking garage

The Chicago Loop parking lot was once the Teutonic building

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 18, 2021

A parking lot in the Loop has a secret identity.

We’re not talking about the one on Lake Street that postmodern architect Stanley Tigerman designed in the 1980s for looks like a vintage Rolls Royce.

No, a modest 12-story parking lot is about six blocks away on Washington and Wells streets. Today the building is conventional, square and drab. But it has long hid a secret: It was once an ornate skyscraper, built in the 1890s with a pointed roof and columns of bay windows running along its brick facade to a terracotta crown at frilly.

An illustration of a skyscraper at the 179 W. Washington Street Building in Chicago, 1893. Handy & Cady. Inland Architect 20, no. 1 (1892): 13, Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago. Digital file # IA20XX_1007.

Designed by Jeremiah Cady, the German Renaissance-style building opened in 1893 as the Teutonic Building. (Teutonic is an ancient term for people in Germany and other northern European countries, where an ancient tribe called the Teutons lived.)

Over the years, the tower has housed mortgage companies, the owners of a Midwestern movie theater chain, the offices of a 1920s campaign to support the human rights of the Jewish people, a newspaper called the Chicago eagle, and the architectural firm Schmidt, Garden & Martin, which designed, among others, the giant building in the Montgomery Ward catalog on the North Branch of the Chicago River. By various owners, the name was later changed to Roosevelt Building and then back to Wilkinson Building, according to the Chicago History website. Chicagology.

But in 1993, a more substantial change occurred: the building was emptied and turned into a parking garage, including a new section to the south.

One thing that hasn’t changed – and which reveals the secret – is the pattern of the windows on the outside. On a rendering of the Teutonic building that Burnham Ryerson of the Art Institute posted, the windows on each floor follow this pattern: 2, 2, 4, 2, 2, with the 4 middle windows as a bay. The pattern is the same on the facades of the Teutonic on Washington and Wells streets (formerly Fifth Avenue).

Standing at the corner of Washington and Wells streets today, you see the same pattern. Only the 4 windows are no longer a bay now, they are flat on the facade like the others.

There are two other obvious signs of the old building. If you stand a short distance east of the building at the corner of LaSalle and Washington streets, you can see that the east side of the garage does not have modern signs. This side is more of a large brick wall with empty openings where the windows once stood.

Still not convinced? Enter the parking lot and take the elevator to a parking level. On exiting the elevator, head towards Washington Street. You will see very clearly that the wall is built of brick on the inside, with the modern paneled exterior attached to it. Above are old iron beams.

A red brick wall and four open windows and two paned windows — If you stand a short distance east of the building at the corner of LaSalle and Washington streets, you can see that the east side of the garage does not have modern signs. This side is more of a large brick wall with empty openings where the windows once stood. Vashon Jordan Jr. / WBEZ

The wall is built of brick on the inside, with the modern paneled exterior attached to it, to the left. Above are old iron beams, to the right.
Jason Marck / WBEZ

Now turn around and walk south along Wells Street. You will stop seeing brick pillars and iron beams above. Now everything is concrete. You have entered the modern part of the parking lot, which is attached to the shell of the old Teutonic building.

When you are in the newer part, go east. You will see to your left a view of the old red brick on the east side of the garage.

The transition from an office building to a multi-story parking lot happened in 1993, according to permits from the City of Chicago Archives. This was a little noticed change, now only recorded to the extent that some cities allow the demolition of non-loadbearing walls.

A view through a concrete structure of a red brick wall in the distance — When you are in the newer part of the parking lot, you can see a view of the old red brick on the east side of the garage. Vashon Jordan Jr. / WBEZ

In 1954, the owner of the building, John C. Wilkinson, was in talks with a developer to sell the site, according to the Chicago Tribune. The proposal was for the new owner to demolish the building (then 62 years old) and replace it with a three-story parking structure. This agreement must have failed, because the Teutonic building is still there, hidden in plain sight.

This makes it perhaps the oldest building you can park a car in in Chicago: an office skyscraper from the 1890s, when cars were in their infancy and not so common as garages for they were needed in the Loop.

In 1918, the first multi-story Loop parking lot was built less than a block west of here at 217 W. Washington Street. The five-story garage for guests of the LaSalle Hotel was a luxury at the time, intended for a wealthy clientele. It was demolished in 2005.

Dennis Rodkin is the residential real estate reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business and Reset’s “What’s That Building?” donor. Follow it @Dennis_Rodkin.

Parking garage

Start of construction of a new car park in downtown Temple

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 16, 2021

Construction of the buildings began in October and is expected to take around 18 months.

TEMPLE, Texas – Construction on the new Temple downtown parking lot began on November 10, according to a press release.

According to officials, construction of the parking lot is expected to take 13 months.

In addition to the city’s parking garages, visitors to downtown will see a variety of private projects take shape this year, such as the Hawn Hotel, the Arcadia Theater and the Sears Building and several new and expanded businesses.

The City will also make improvements to roads and landscaping from Central Avenue to Adams Avenue.

“As the revitalization of the Downtown Temple continues, we look forward to an increase in the number of visitors to the area,” said City Manager Brynn Myers. “We will be ready with an expanded parking lot to provide a practical and dynamic downtown experience”

On September 23, the City of Temple announced its partnership with real estate developer Waco Turner Behringer Development to transform buildings into apartments, shops and restaurants, offices, as well as a function and event hall.

“The Hawn Hotel and the Arcadia Theater have been mainstays of Temple’s historic downtown for nearly a century, so we are delighted to see these monuments get a second life,” said the Director of Temple City, Brynn Myers. “There have been so many dedicated people who have worked to make this a reality, and we can’t wait to see what the end result will be. “

Turner Behringer plans:

57 one to two bedroom apartments in the Hawn and Sears buildings, totaling approximately 45,000 square feet
Approximately 32,000 square feet of commercial retail space, which will include storefronts, new restaurants and offices

“Adaptive reuse refers to the conservation attempt to reuse an existing structure for purposes other than what it was originally built for,” said Shane Turner, partner and broker at Turner Behringer. “We have had great success with our adaptive reuse projects at Waco … and we are excited to be expanding at Temple,” continued Turner.

All projects are expected to be completed by spring 2023.

The real estate developer’s past projects have included the Hippodrome Theater, Madison Apartments and Altura Lofts.

No traffic slowdown is expected at this time. But some road closures are planned as this work progresses. The City will coordinate with local businesses to minimize the impact.

For updates on these and other key downtown construction projects, visit siteletstalktemple.com. Those with additional questions can contact the Temple City Engineering Department at 254-298-5660.

RELATED: Temple’s Downtown Hawn Hotel Revitalization Project, Arcadia Theater Includes New Apartments and Restaurants

RELATED: More Road Closures for Killeen in November

Parking spaces

Property of London: the posh city where parking spaces sell for £ 5million

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 14, 2021

Central London has become so expensive that parking spaces are selling in the millions.

Estate agents in the upscale neighborhoods of Kensington and Chelsea are full of lists of parking spots costing six figures.

A variety of private parking spaces are listed with the real estate agent John D Wood & Co in some of the most luxurious streets of the capital.

A parking space has been put up for sale at Kingston House South in Knightsbridge for £ 350,000.

READ MORE: Harrods parking space is on sale for £ 250,000 and people are ‘very frustrated’

But in its last sale in March 2016, it grossed an unimaginable amount of £ 5,050,000.

A four bedroom house in the borough is listed for around £ 5million on Zoopla.

Parking spaces across Kensington and Chelsea cost a staggering amount
(Image: John D Wood & Co)

The three-meter-wide parking space has its own metal gate and is half a mile from South Kensington Station.

A parking space opposite Harrods costs £ 250,000 and has its own private entrance and 24 hour security.

Luxury buyers can even take a 360-degree virtual reality tour of the location to make sure it’s perfect for their supercar.

The high demand for private parking in central London has also led to much more usual parking spaces costing a tempting sum.

A double parking space next to Gloucester Road tube station is available for £ 150,000.

Potential buyers can get a mortgage to help pay for the place, but it will cost £ 572 per month for the next 25 years.

Meanwhile, at Holland Park, a 10-foot-wide parking spot will set you back £ 119,000.

The dramatic prices of parking spaces are reflected in the prices of housing throughout the borough.

A mansion in Chelsea is listed on Rightmove for £ 35million and the average property in Knightsbridge costs £ 2.83million, according to the Foxtons estate agency.

Kensington and Chelsea council said it was in desperate need of housing due to the borough’s huge prices.

Do you want to stay on top of the latest news, views, features and opinions from all over the city?

MyLondon’s brilliant newsletter, The 12, is packed with all the latest news to keep you entertained, informed and uplifted.

You will receive 12 stories straight to your inbox at around 12 noon. It’s the perfect read for lunch.

And what’s more, it’s FREE!

The MyLondon team tells London stories to Londoners. Our journalists cover all the news you need – from city hall to your local streets, so you never miss a moment.

Don’t waste time and sign up for The 12 newsletter here.

City Councilor Johnny Thalassites, responsible for environment, planning and venue, said: ‘We are in desperate need of housing and as a borough with some of the most expensive land and property in the UK – it’s very frustrating to see a six-digit number. price tag on a parking space and discouraging for those looking to climb the property ladder.

“This is a major challenge for us as a city council as we seek to build new homes. Despite the challenge, we are making progress, with the first of our 600 new homes – 300 on social rent – currently under construction on Hewer Street and Kensal Road.

John D Wood & Co Director Matthew Harrop said: “These parking spaces have traditionally attracted shoppers with classic cars and motorcycles and expensive or rare cars which, if left on the street, are in danger of falling. ” be stolen or damaged.

“The spaces have excellent security recognized by the Safer Parking Scheme award; with a 24 hour concierge desk, entry barrier, security video cameras throughout, electric gates and an automated key.

“Closed garages that were built in the 1950s-1970s are now often too narrow for modern cars and as such are popular with homeowners who want storage right on their doorstep – which is. more practical than renting a storage room which could be a 30-. minutes by car.

“We have also seen an increase in the popularity of garage spaces as more of these garages have electric charging points that allow owners to safely charge their cars on the main street at night. “

Parking garage

Authorities say a new car park in Stamford is good news for walkers and cyclists. Town planners disagree

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 30, 2021

STAMFORD – When regional leaders gathered opposite the Stamford transport hub to celebrate the grand opening of a new state garage, lawmakers were hopeful for the future.

U.S. Representative Jim Himes, D-Conn., Hinted that the new garage would help create a “progressive mall” in downtown Stamford where people could exist without cars. State Representative and city mayoral candidate Caroline Simmons, D-Stamford, called it a victory for “hard-working commuters, for public safety, for quality of life.” Cory Paris Representative D-Stamford said the $ 81.7 million investment proved that “our state’s crown jewel sets a great example of how we can invest in infrastructure.”

But in the hours since lawmakers hailed the 928-seater garage as a win for Stamford and the region, backlash began to bubble online.

“No, no, no,” Hartford town planner Autumn Florek wrote on Twitter. “Building gigantic parking garages destroys the environment and our communities. It’s not a party! “

Florek was far from alone. The consensus among urban planning practitioners and enthusiasts is that building a larger garage is terrible for residents and bad for the environment.

“This is tripling on the car-centric land use around this busy station, as many people are finally starting to realize, exactly at the wrong time to increase driving and increase pollution in urban areas and increase emissions. greenhouse gases, ”said Anthony Cherolis, Hartford-based transport advocate and engineer.

In 2008, Connecticut set out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to 80% or below 2001 levels, a goal the state has not always been able to meet. Transportation continues to be one of the state’s biggest producers of gas emissions, “primarily from the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles,” according to a 2021 State Department study. ‘Energy and Environmental Protection.

Cherolis argues that by building nearly 1,000 parking spaces, the city will further encourage driving for decades to come. The existing public garage for the Stamford Transportation Center, for example, was built in 1985.

Plans for the new garage on Washington Boulevard include improvements to the roads surrounding the garage – like dedicated bus, carpool, and taxi lanes – and a direct pedestrian connection to track 5 of the station where the Metro-North Railway takes. passengers to Grand Central Station.

State Transportation Commissioner Joseph Giulietti said on Monday, during the official introduction of the garage project, that the pavement improvements would be “bicycle and pedestrian friendly” to complement the 100 storage spaces. sheltered bikes that the DOT will include in the garage.

However, Cherolis rejected the idea that the garage could make the station accessible to non-drivers while increasing the number of spaces for drivers.

“I think they’re putting lipstick on a pig,” he said. “Walking or cycling past the entrance or exit of a parking lot during rush hour – it’s hard to think of that better and make it safe or convenient. “

New proposal, new reviews

While planners criticize the garage’s design, the DOT faced almost opposite criticism the last time it attempted to revitalize the area around the station.

The department presented a $ 500 million plan in 2013 to replace the dilapidated garage at 43 Station Place across from the station with “600,000 square feet of commercial office, 60,000 square feet of retail floors, 150 hotel rooms and 150 residential units ”. The plan was to bring transit-oriented development, an urban development strategy that seeks to maximize convenience close to transit, to Stamford.

As part of this plan, the suburban parking lot was about to move a quarter of a mile. Some commuters lobbied against the proposal.

“Commuters want the parking lot rebuilt, in place. DOT wants a transit-focused development project that will expand station uses and generate revenue,” said John Hartwell, then Connecticut vice president. Commuter Rail Council, in 2016.

After years of delay, the sight of a mixed-use bubble near the train station has faded on the vine. In October 2016, state officials canceled the redevelopment more than three years after the process began because the designated real estate and construction team failed their verification process.

Two years later, when the state attempted to seek public opinion on building a parking lot instead of a mixed-use complex, public reaction was still mixed. Few of the residents attended community meetings with the state, and residents wanted to see a new garage built directly where the current parking lot is.

Town representative Eric Morson, D-13, agreed then and still supports him today. The new parking garage plan does not replicate the same convenience of the old garage.

“If you need to pick up your train at the north end of the platform or if you are dropped off at the north end of the platform… this parking lot is at the south end of the platform,” said Morson, a longtime commuter, noted. “It’s a hell of a walk for some people who might not be able to do it. It’s going to take some people longer. And when you rush for your train? Maybe you miss it.”

Giulietti revealed at Monday’s ceremony that the state has more ambitious plans for the existing garage. He has to demolish a significant part of the facility due to structural problems. In the process, the DOT expects to find a new use for the property.

“This is top notch real estate,” Giulietti said of the plot. “We are looking to attract investors so that we can offset some of our costs of launching an operation by perhaps putting something in that will generate funds for the system.”

Design for the future

The very lack of convenience for motorists and worried commuters like Hartwell and Morson is what some planners think cities should aim to do.

Mary Donegan, professor of town planning at the University of Connecticut, understands that people drive places, especially in this state. But she also knows that building more garages and roads leads to more driving, a claim supported by research.

A study conducted by several UConn professors in 2016 linked the supply of parking to the number of people driving using geospatial data. As the number of parking spaces per person increased from 0.2 to 0.5, the share of people traveling by car increased with it.

“We kind of have this story in Connecticut that we need to improve service for people to use transit, and it’s true,” Donegan said. “But it’s also true that we have to make it harder to drive. If we just improve the service, people won’t change.”

For the sake of the people of Stamford, present and future, she believes it is up to the state to force this change.

Donegan also argues that there is an element of fairness in not building a garage.

“The poorest residents don’t own a car and certainly won’t be able to afford this garage,” she said. “So you are spending a lot of money on infrastructure to help the wealthiest in the city and detrimental to small business owners or residents who want to walk and cycle.”

Dice Oh, an active member of the local transport advocacy group People Friendly Stamford, understands that there must be garage parking, given the role of the Stamford Transport Center as a regional hub. Still, he’s frustrated with the design.

“The priority for the station should be much more to allow the kind of developments that would create pedestrianized neighborhoods oriented towards public transport, and not to make the car the number one priority, which is happening now,” said Oh.

The old garage was falling apart. He understands that something new had to happen, but it should have taken a more forward-looking approach.

“What we would like to see (from) the state is to have a vision of the station of the future that is not just 1,000 people going to the station every day,” he said.

[email protected]

Parking spaces

“You Could Buy A Mansion In Tulsa”: Boston Parking Spaces Listed At $ 225,000 Gets Attention On TikTok, Twitter

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 29, 2021

A pair of Boston parking spots listed for $ 225,000 grabbed attention on TikTok and Twitter this week.

“Two parking spaces in a tandem space located on the upper level in the garage of the Wilkes passage”, the Red end list of states.

Social media users quickly spotted the list.

“What’s going on in Boston these days,” Zillowgonewild account creator TikTok said. “Why is it so expensive? You could buy a mansion in Tulsa instead of this one if you wanted.

The account also tweeted about the parking spots, getting a number of reactions.

“I can’t understand the concept of 2 parking spots in Boston selling for the estimated value of my entire 1,700 square foot 4-bedroom home,” one person tweeted.

“If I had $ 225,000 available to pay for a parking space, I would just buy a new car whenever I needed to drive somewhere and leave it on the street whenever I was done driving.” , another person tweeted.

Some have also noted the HOA fee of $ 178.86.

“So wait until it’s $ 225,000 for the spaces and then pay $ 179 per month for the ‘HOA’ fees,” one person asked. “Besides, you have to shuffle your cars if you have to drive the one in the front slot …”

Boston.com noted that it was originally classified as a ‘rare find’ by Redfin.com.

“This house is $ 774,000 less than most South End homes – visit it before it goes missing!” the SEO site said earlier this week, which has since been deleted, according to Boston.com.

“Me, looking at real estate in Boston: oh yes, here is an affordable place near Longwood! * after clicking * oop, no it’s a parking spot, nvm, ”a Twitter user said.

Of course, the $ 225 parking spot isn’t the most expensive the city has known.

In 2015, a parking spot was listed for $ 650,000.

Associated content:

Parking garage

Wheeling City Council plans to fund Market Street parking garage | News, Sports, Jobs

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 18, 2021

This artist’s concept drawing by the Mills Group shows the planned design for the new City of Wheeling parking garage to be built at the corner of 11th and Market streets downtown. (Picture provided)

WHEELING — City of Wheeling officials are moving forward with legislation to put in place funding for the construction of the planned Market Street parking garage.

This week, members of the Wheeling City Council are due to hear a first reading of an ordinance to fund the cost of the new parking lot at Market and 11th streets through the issuance of rental income bonds from an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $19.5 million.

City Manager Robert Herron noted that the ordinance wording for the bonds includes a maximum funding amount relative to the projected cost of the project, which city officials say will likely cost between $16 million and $17 million. dollars.

The new parking structure is being built to accommodate a private investment from Access Infrastructure to create a new apartment complex inside the city’s tallest building, the former headquarters of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel on Market Street. This private investment is expected to exceed $30 million, and city leaders plan to support retail businesses once tenants begin to fill Wheeling-Pitt’s historic lofts.

A portion of the new parking structure will be dedicated to tenants of the new loft apartment complex, while additional parking will be available within the six-story structure for visitors to downtown Wheeling. Street-level retail spaces have been incorporated into the design of the city’s new parking structure.

The new ordinance to establish funding for the parking structure also provides for the property at 1104 and 1114 Market Street to be transferred from the Ohio Valley Area Development Corporation – the nonprofit entity used by the city to facilitate real estate transactions – to the Wheeling Municipal Building Commission – the newly invigorated committee that is responsible for directing major building projects for the city.

A first reading of the new ordinance is expected to take place at Tuesday evening’s council meeting, with a second and final reading of the legislation scheduled for the November 2 council meeting.

Before construction of the new parking structure could begin, the vacant Chase Bank building on Market Street would have to be demolished and removed. Shadyside’s Raze International has been awarded a $475,000 contract to tear down the building where the new parking lot will be. Officials said asbestos removal was being completed at the site and the building was due to be razed before the end of the year.

During the last meeting of the municipal council, a citizen spoke out against the involvement of the City in the construction of a new parking lot for private development. Wheeling resident Julia Chaplin asked why Coon Restoration and Sealants – the developer of the Historic Wheeling-Pitt Lofts project by Dr. John Johnson and Access Infrastructure – did not pay for the parking needed by their tenants.

“Why didn’t they include in their proposal to build the installation plans for a garage?” Chaplin asked city leaders. “Basically, we’re as a city paying for its garage that won’t be self-funding, as the mayor said. As taxpayers, we subsidize this development corporation.

Another ordinance involving tax liabilities for a city-owned parking lot is also expected to be introduced on Tuesday. The legislation – described in legal language very similar to the Market Street Parking Garage Project Ordinance – provides for the issuance of rental income bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $3 million for the Center Wheeling parking garage project.

On Friday, Herron explained that planned improvements to Center Wheeling’s parking structure had been underway for some time, and when the Ohio Valley Medical Center was operating, the tax increment funding district around the property generated a potential pool over $4. million for investment. However, after OVMC ownership changed hands from Alecto to MPT and eventually to the City of Wheeling, the TIF District stopped generating the revenue that would be needed to repay the money if it was used for improvements to the car park.

The TIF district is still in place at the OVMC site, and if the buildings are sold to a private developer, additional funding would again be generated, the city manager said.

City leaders continue to seek potential tenants and buyers for vacant buildings on the OVMC campus. A tenant who had maintained occupancy after the city acquired the property last year recently moved out, Herron noted. This summer, Northwood Health Systems opened its new, state-of-the-art, 28,000 square foot behavioral health clinic adjacent to the company’s administrative offices at the corner of 19th and Wood streets. Herron reported earlier this month that Northwood had officially moved out of the space he used at OVMC after moving into his newly built facility.

The latest news today and more in your inbox

Parking garage

The Planning Commission approves the Granary parking garage with a capacity of 1000 cars

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 14, 2021

The Salt Lake City-based developer looking to start development in the Granary District got approval Wednesday night to build a 90-foot-high parking lot with space for 976 stalls.

A few members of the Planning Commission questioned whether the structure was at odds with the city’s broader goals of moving away from a long era of automotive domination. But the developer could have built a 60-foot structure without permission, and the commission decided to approve the taller building at its meeting Wednesday night.

The developers say the structure would support an existing 330,000 square foot office space that is already half built and leased, as well as some or all of two new housing structures planned for their sprawling real estate properties in the near area. of 650 S. 500 W.

The garage would help shore up parking for what will be a rapid attack on housing and office space in the area, said representatives from Q Factor, the development group whose owners have initiated development in what is now. a popular area of Denver and moved to Salt Lake City. do the same in the attic.

Q Factor, which said it prioritizes adaptive reuse for the Industrial Granary District, is roughly halfway with what it calls Industry SLC (the same name as the Catalytic Project in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood) .

The office building is expected to accommodate over 1,200 people each day, as well as visitors. A planned apartment building north of the inbound parking lot would have more than 200 units targeting achievable rents by people with a median income of 60-80% (or single people earning between $ 39,000 and $ 50,000 per year).

Residents of this building and a future market-priced apartment building southwest of the parking structure and facing 500 West and 700 South would partially use stalls in the structures, said Jason Winkler, co-owner of Q Factor with his wife, Ellen, the design manager of the company.

“Specifically, directly east of the parking structure is retail and a climbing gym,” said Jason Winkler. “There will be other users besides us who will be using the parking structure. “

This aerial drawing of the proposed parking structure (blue) shows how the plot owned by Q Factor would begin to be quartered, with a private north-south but publicly accessible Elder Court and an east-west walkway in the Granary District . Rendered courtesy of Salt Lake City Planning.

The developers plan to activate Elder Court, a private but publicly accessible street that runs down the middle of the north-south block between 700 south and 600 south and passes through the future parking structure.

A new pedestrian walkway would connect 500 West to the parking lot, and Q Factor representatives said they were coordinating with owners immediately east of the parking lot to continue a walkway to 400 West.

This would effectively divide the Salt Lake City block into four quadrants, a dream among those looking to make the capital more accessible on foot despite its long blocks.

However, adding 50% to the authorized height of the parking structure gave a member of the commission heartburn.

“We are integrating, in a way, a continuation of the self-oriented systems that we have been trying for a long time to work on,” said Brenda Scheer. “I know that even though the transit isn’t there yet, the (additional) buildings aren’t there yet, so I’m a little confused as to why I don’t see a master plan at all.”

She and others have noted the possibility of expanding transit along existing routes on the West 400, as the city has attempted to do in the recent past. But these are just concepts, like this point, another member replied.

“If we were 4th south with an active TRAX line, we might question it,” said Adreinne Bell, “but who knows if and when public transport is going to reach this part of town.”

Scheer was the only voting member of the committee to vote against the proposal, which passed 6-1. Q Factor does not need any further approval before withdrawing building permits.

Construction details

Structural engineer: Kimley-Horn & Associates

M&P Engineer: MEP Engineering

Electrical Engineer: Helix Electric

Civil Engineer: McNeil Engineering

Landscape architect: McNeil Engineering

Want to know where developers are offering and building new apartments in Salt Lake, or just want to support a local source of information about what’s going on in your neighborhood? Learn more about become a member.

Uncategorized

A futuristic look at parking structures

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 7, 2021

“No Parking” certainly does not need to imply a negative connotation, according to a recent report by JLL who describes four ways parking garages prepare for fewer cars.

Land conversions, parking technology pilots, EV stations and autonomous vehicle hubs are some of the creative and innovative ways to evolve these important elements of commercial real estate.

The rise of VTCs, autonomous vehicles and micro-mobility devices such as electric scooters should lower motorization rates among younger generations.

This, along with the increase in electric vehicle ownership, has caused building owners and architects to think about parking lots and how they will need to adapt.

“The forecasted demand for electric vehicles is increasing,” says Mike Bammel, general manager and national practice manager, Renewable Energy, JLL. “Existing properties may not have the capacity or capabilities to manage it. “

Turn it into a retail space

Parking garages are built for a future where people drive less, which means designing structures that can support the possibility that they can be turned into something else, like a retail space or a theater.

For example, a garage in AvalonBay Communities Inc.’s 475-unit multi-family complex in the Los Angeles Arts District will have higher than average ceilings; flat floors, unlike the sloped foundations found in most parking garages; and the elevators and stairs are in the middle of the structure, not on the perimeter. The project is expected to be completed in 2022, according to JLL.

In Shenzhen, Kohn Pedersen is designing a complex with underground parking lots that could be converted into retail space.

The Cincinnati headquarters of data analytics firm 84.51 ° was designed with three floors of above ground parking that could be converted into offices, JLL also reports.

Technical parking experiments in progress

To prepare the car parks of the future, new technologies must be tested. The current structures are already part of the experiment.

Inside the Detroit Smart Parking Lab, which opened in August, smart mobility and infrastructure companies are testing parking-related mobility, logistics and electric vehicle charging technologies, with help from Michigan state grants.

Enterprise, the rental car company, will test automated valet parking technology that can improve the rental car return process in the Detroit space.

The proliferation of EV charging stations

In 2020, the share of global sales of electric cars increased by 70% to a record 5%, according to the International Energy Agency.

And by some estimates, electricity adoption could increase by 25% per year over the next five years, according to Bammel. There are tax advantages in some areas for building charging stations to meet this demand. AvalonBay has increased the number of electric car charging stations in its buildings in West Hollywood and Hollywood, as have many multi-family owners.

“Coordinating with infrastructure teams to ensure they have the capabilities to execute and deliver sustainability options will be critical to deploying this programming successfully and on time to meet demand,” said Bammel .

In California, tech company EVmatch is installing 120 electric vehicle chargers in apartment complexes with a grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC). The company plans to target properties in poorer communities where residents typically face major barriers to owning and charging electric vehicles.

Autonomous fleets fit into tight compression

Many building owners envision their current car parks as future transport hubs for driverless taxi fleets.

The Kohn Pedersen complex in Shenzhen, for example, has an elevated loop that could be dedicated to autonomous vehicle drop-offs and pick-ups.

A 2018 render from the National Parking Association in the United States shows a garage with stacked parking for autonomous vehicles and separate entry lanes for cars driven by humans. The absence of drivers allows them to squeeze more tightly than typical cars.

“It might sound like a long way off, but it really isn’t,” Bammel says. “Building owners are best prepared to adapt to changes as they occur. “

Parking garage

Boscov car park in Binghamton town center will be rebuilt

by Deena S. Hawkins on September 22, 2021

BINGHAMTON – Much of the deteriorating downtown real estate is ready for a major renovation in Binghamton.

Mayor Richard David on Wednesday announced plans to demolish the Water Street parking garage and build a mixed-use parking and housing park that will include 122 apartments.

The Water Street Parking Garage was built in 1970 and has been the primary source of parking for Boscov customers since 1984. Its integrity has been on the decline for years, evidenced by an August 2006 incident in which a 7,000-pound concrete slab broke outside the garage and plunged into a trailer near the Boscov’s loading dock.

The garage would require millions of dollars in structural repairs to extend its life by a few years. Instead, the city is taking a different direction with a new take on the city center.

“The required demolition of the Water Street parking garage provides the City with a unique opportunity to transform an entire city block in the heart of Binghamton’s waterfront and artsy district,” said David. “This development will not only revitalize the immediate area, but will also support small businesses and downtown restaurants.

“Downtown deserves better than a massive 50-year-old concrete horror. United-Pike’s proposal stood out because it didn’t depend on state economic development funding to get started, as it is. the case with so many large-scale projects. “

The project includes a total investment of $ 48 million, with United Group of Troy and The Pike Company of Rochester joining in the effort. The demolition and construction of the parking garage, as well as the geotechnical study and foundation work, are estimated at $ 23 million.

The five-storey public parking lot will reduce vehicle capacity slightly, providing 549 parking spaces from the 600 currently available at the Water Street parking lot. The 122 apartments will be at market price, spread over five floors above the parking garage. United-Pike estimates that part of the project will cost $ 25 million.

When the project is complete, it will be the second overhaul of a downtown parking lot, following the opening in January of the Hawley Street garage, which replaced the aging structure that served the Arena, the area on along downtown State Street and government offices.

Stacey Duncan, president and CEO of the Greater Binghamton Chamber of Commerce and executive director of the agency in Broome County, said she expects IDA to play a role in advancing the large-scale project.

“It is very important to continue to provide professional housing opportunities downtown, especially where we can improve our shoreline,” said Duncan. “This project is located downtown, along the river, and will serve as an important anchor point for retail and service businesses that can meet the needs of downtown residents.

“I know this has been a priority for the Mayor and I’m glad he was able to complete this project. We look forward to working with United and Pike, a great development collaboration for the community.”

Budget 2022:How the town of Binghamton plans to spend $ 99 million

New development:Meet the baker behind the new company on the Vestal Rail Trail

Sports:Why is the EU stadium named after Ty Cobb? The people, heritage behind 11 fields Section 4

The demolition and construction of the parking lot will be funded from City reserves and the capital bond, David said. The housing part of the project is financed by the private sector. The city had issued a request for economic redevelopment proposals using the current Water Street parking garage site in September 2020.

“Pike Development is thrilled to have the opportunity to participate in the revitalization of the Water Street Garage,” said Peter Cornell, President and CEO of Pike Development. “We appreciate Binghamton City’s forward thinking staff led by Mayor David. Using air rights to the garage for a new apartment project brings into use an area that is generally underutilized and will generate 24 hour activity. We can’t wait to get started.

United-Pike will perform testing and analysis of the plot’s structural foundations over the coming weeks, while the project is expected to progress through the city’s planning review process in the coming months.

The Water Street Parking Garage also serves Boscov guests. The city said demolition should begin after Christmas Day to avoid any major impact on Boscov’s and the downtown holiday shopping season.

The city said it will work with holders of monthly parking permits at the Water Street Garage to move them to other parking lots in the city. He will also work with Boscov and the project developer to add temporary parking for customers during the project.

Chris Potter can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter @ ChrisPotter413. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Parking garage

Bloomington’s new parking lot will soon feature artwork and solar panels

by Deena S. Hawkins on September 21, 2021

The opening of the new Fourth Street parking lot last month eased some space constraints and made life a little easier for downtown employees and customers, according to business groups.

Downtown businesses are emerging from a pandemic-induced malaise, and not having to worry about lack of parking is some relief.

“Parking in general is a part of the daily lives of many downtown employees, businesses and customers,” said Talisha Coppock, executive director of Downtown Bloomington Inc., a non-profit organization.

Bloomington City Council:“A la carte” garbage collection, higher parking fees?

The economic recovery remains fragile, she said, and some customers are still reluctant to join crowded indoor spaces, so not having to worry about parking takes some of the stress away.

Erin Predmore, president and CEO of the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, agrees.

“It’s great to have additional parking,” she said.

With the return of students and events like this weekend’s Lotus World Music & Arts Festival, downtown merchants are happy that parking constraints have been reduced, Predmore said.

While the garage receives customers on an hourly basis, she said the spaces primarily help employers who struggle to find adequate, nearby and secure parking for their employees.

Following:How many students have been exempted from IU’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate?

Outside the rented spaces, parking in the garage is supposed to cost 50 cents an hour. But some of the garage’s electronic equipment malfunctioned last week, forcing city officials to allow people to park in the garage for free.

However, Bloomington Public Works Director Adam Wason said a spare should be installed this week, starting on Tuesday.

The garage entrance is on West Fourth Street, between South Walnut Street and South College Avenue.

About 100 of the nearly 540 spaces will be dedicated to hourly parking, while the rest will be rented to downtown employers. There are few places left to rent, Wason said. Some of the rented spaces are booked 24/7, while others are rented 12 hours a day Monday through Friday, opening them up to hourly use at night and on weekends.

He also said the city still needs to complete additional landscaping, artwork that will be incorporated into the facade of the building and a sign indicating whether the garage is full.

Wason said when city officials opened the garage in August, they knew more work needed to take place and they expected to have to fix some issues. Nonetheless, they wanted the structure open to provide additional parking when students arrive for the Indiana University fall semester.

Observation of the Bloomington monkey:Couple catches animal on video near local hotel

Commercial offices and retail space on the garage’s ground floor are currently unoccupied and no lease has been signed, Wason said.

According to a brochure from Cockerham Commercial Real Estate & Consulting, the garage offers four 1,800 square foot spaces, which can be combined. Wason said the spaces could accommodate businesses such as restaurants, retailers or a coffee shop.

Wason also said he expects solar panels to be installed within the next month. City officials are hoping the panels will generate enough electricity to run the garage and businesses, but Wason said that depends a bit on the type of businesses that will occupy the space.

Although the garage has not yet been fully occupied, Wason said he has seen an increase in traffic, and he expects this trend to continue, especially as the nation emerges fully from the pandemic and people come to the city center more often to work, shop, dine or attend events.

The garage replaced a smaller one that the city had originally planned to rehabilitate but then demolished.

In February 2019, a report on additional structural inspections revealed significant deterioration. The council has issued a bond of $ 18.5 million for a new garage. Including interest, the total cost of the garage is expected to increase by almost $ 30 million. The deposit is to be paid through parking fees and income from financing tax increases.

After the city closed the old garage, downtown traders said they saw less foot traffic, though some council members at the time were also concerned about subsidizing parking at a time when the car traffic should be reduced to help combat climate change.

The discussion has erupted again during recent budget discussions, with some council members suggesting that the price of parking in garages, lots and streets should be adjusted in part depending on the popularity of parking spaces.

Boris Ladwig is the municipal government reporter for the Herald-Times. Contact him at [email protected]

Parking garage

A conflict looms over the parking lot planned for OTR’s Logan Street

by Deena S. Hawkins on September 16, 2021

CINCINNATI – Longtime resident John Back knows all too well the urgent need for better parking access in Over-the-Rhine, especially near Findlay Market. Although he has access to a lot, he said he can still get stuck with no space to park. It is even more difficult to make room for guests in his home.

“It’s difficult, you know. People who don’t have a parking space, sometimes they take yours because they don’t know who it is. Sometimes your parking space is blocked.

Like a number of other residents and community stakeholders, he welcomes Hamilton County’s idea of building a parking garage in the area to meet the needs. The garage is expected to include spaces for the public, especially Findlay Market patrons, TQL Stadium football fans, in addition to locations for local developers like The Model Group and Urban Sites.

However, Back is one of many people deeply involved in the preservation of the Overseas Territory and history who dispute how Hamilton County wishes to execute the plan. Project organizers intend to close part of Logan Street between Elder Street and Findlay Street, and build on the current street to create the new parking structure. They are also looking to create a new access street behind the garage that will connect to Central Parkway.

Tomorrow, the city’s planning commission is to consider Hamilton County’s request that part of Logan Street in Over-the-Rhine be vacated and sold to prepare the land for the garage. In addition to raising issues with the city’s planning for the project, critics argue that Hamilton County did not seek enough community input before entering the commission.

Residents say crossing Logan Street is important for their travel. Building the garage with this design will disrupt the network of the historic district, making it more congested and degrading the quality of life for residents.

“I’m in favor,” Back said. “But the main problem here is that there is a street called Logan Street that people use every day.” Back happens to be a developer and has returned a number of properties in the area. He also works for a real estate company and is an architect by training. Still, he said his concern about this effort was rooted not in his professional experience, but in his love and passion for Over-the-Rhine as a neighborhood.

“I don’t see anything more annoying than wiping out an entire street and cutting off people.”

Jennifer LeMasters, also a longtime resident and architect, shares Back’s concerns. LeMasters is the Co-Chair of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation Interim Committee. She feels that those who received enough information and commitment to the project were well-to-do business professionals who are exploited in the Over-the-Rhine business community. More than that, she and other critics argue that those who have consistently corresponded with Hamilton County about the new garage are the ones who will benefit the most from the structure.

Meanwhile, ordinary and marginalized residents who are out of touch with the city’s bureaucracy and Cincinnati’s business scene are out of the loop, according to LeMasters. She believes the county and the project organizers should have done a better job of reaching more residents who will be affected so that they had a better chance to provide their contribution.

“There’s a meaningful engagement, and then there’s just a engagement to tick the box. And I think they ticked the box on that 80% engagement, 70% maybe, but did they have any meaningful engagement here? No.”

But Phil Beck, Hamilton County Construction Manager, opposes the criticism.

“I can categorically say that is not the case.” Beck, the garage project leader, dismisses the idea that Hamilton County has not made a concerted and energetic effort to educate and engage with various residents as well as important institutions. He said Hamilton County had held around 20 meetings with people from the community over the past few months.

Joe Hansbauer, CEO of Findlay Market, is supporting county officials in the face of criticism. Hansbauer said he had never seen so much community outreach on a project in his 10 years at Findlay Market.

“At the end of the day, I think they picked a design that maximizes the contribution of the community. Does that mean they hit 100% of all concerns? Of course not. It’s not possible, right? But they recognize where, you know, there were concerns that they couldn’t address. And I think that’s what it is. “

Bobby Maly of The Model Group also took issue with criticism that the garage disproportionately adapts to the needs of private companies by giving them the bulk of the spaces. He said a large chunk of those spaces would also serve as parking for workers during the day and public parking at night and on weekends.

Still, critics like LeMasters and Back blame the county for not formally hiring the Over-the-Rhine Community Council before approaching the city’s planning commission to evacuate and sell the land on Logan Street.

“I hope the planning committee realizes that this goes against the overall plan,” Back said. “It is against the values that we have adopted as a city.”

The planning committee is due to address the vacation and the Logan Street sale at 9 a.m. on Friday, September 17. Those interested in following the discussion can watch a live broadcast here on the city’s website.

Monique John covers gentrification for WCPO 9. She is part of our donor-supported journalism program Report For America. Learn more about RFA here.

If there are any stories about gentrification in the Greater Cincinnati area that you think we should cover, let us know. Send us your tips at [email protected]

Parking spaces

Some parking spots in Toronto cost $ 120,000 right now and here’s why

by Deena S. Hawkins on August 25, 2021

Just when you thought real estate in Toronto couldn’t be more ridiculous, several parking spots have recently been marketed in the city for more than double what the average Canadian earns in an entire year. How is that possible, you ask? According to Layers Agents Gilda Motamed and Francisco Hiebert, it comes down to the scarcity, location and lifestyle changes fueled by the pandemic.

This coveted place, for example, is located in the underground parking lot of the Massey Tower, a short walk from Yonge-Dundas Square. Not only is it $ 120,000, but the maintenance fee is $ 211 per month. A lot of people would need to take out a large loan just to park their cars here. But, that’s about the going rate in this particular building, where available parking spaces are scarce, Hiebert explains.

“Parking spaces at [The Massey Tower] are hard to find. Limited places with high demand will result in higher prices. Of the 9 listings currently for sale, only 3 have parking facilities, ”Hiebert told Curiocity.

Recent Posts
This Toronto Krispy Kreme is giving away FREE frozen donuts today only
Huge new Nordic spa village near Toronto confirmed to open soon

“The building was built on top of an existing structure, so the developer couldn’t dig in the same way as on empty land. This resulted in limited availability of parking spaces during pre-construction sales.

For this reason, however, if you own a condo in the building, it will add value to your unit when you are ready to sell. In most buildings, parking is valued between $ 30,000 and $ 50,000, according to Hiebert.

“By purchasing a site, your condo will increase in value. But keep in mind that your maintenance costs will also increase, ”Motamed said. It also means that if you own a condo with a parking spot and choose to sell it, the value of your home could go down.

It’s not just the limited availability that’s driving costs up. Changing priorities amid COVID-19 have “caused people to buy cars to avoid public transport and have the freedom to get out of town,” Hiebert said.

All the more reason to move to one of the affordable cities that still exist in Ontario.

Stick of curiosity

With an organized list of what matters in your city, Curiocity brings you the most relevant local food, experiences, news, deals and adventures. We help you get the most out of your city and focus on details that are easy to miss so you are always in the know.

Read the articles

Parking spaces

“Innovative office experience”, more than 650 parking spaces arrive in Provo in a new development

by Deena S. Hawkins on August 21, 2021

PROVO, Utah (ABC4) – An “innovative new office experience” is coming to Provo thanks to a network of local business leaders. The group aims to ease the challenges of transitioning to office work for a post-pandemic workforce.

PEG Companies, which focuses on commercial real estate, changes headquarters and welcomes other companies joining them in a multi-block development in downtown Provo. The Freedom Commons, the new business park, is the first Class A office to be built in downtown Provo in nearly a decade. Designers say offices are meant to promote employee well-being while promoting a work / life balance.

“Right now, people across the United States are taking note of Utah for the entrepreneurial and industrious spirit we exude here. There is nothing better for business or for raising a family, ”said Utah Governor Spencer Cox. “As we plan for the continued growth that we will no doubt see in the years to come, building world-class infrastructure like Freedom Commons will be essential. “

The Freedom Commons, located at 182 N Freedom Boulevard in Provo, will feature a 2,000 square foot fitness center, urban-green design with outdoor work spaces, a 4,500 square foot plaza, landscaped paseo, germ reduction technology and several plug-in spaces for food truck parking. The developers say several retail stores and a large 654-space indoor parking lot for the community to use will be adjacent to the offices.

SLIDESHOW: Renderings of the Freedom Commons, currently under construction

Render of the Freedom Commons to be built in Provo, Utah. (PEG companies)
Render of the Freedom Commons to be built in Provo, Utah. (PEG companies)
Render of the Freedom Commons to be built in Provo, Utah. (PEG companies)

“Provo is a growing hotspot for innovative companies. You look at very successful companies like Nu Skin, Qualtrics, Novell and so many others who have chosen to locate their headquarters here, and that makes sense, ”says Cameron Gunter, CEO of PEG. “We have two top performing universities in our backyard, we have a highly skilled workforce, a culture of hard work, and an incredibly strong economy. “

According to PEG, Freedom Commons is in one of 8,700 Qualified Opportunity Zones across the country, which were established by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and are designated to “stimulate economic growth and job creation ”.

On Wednesday, a finishing ceremony was held and the last steel beam was put in place at the Freedom Commons. For more information, Click here.

Parking garage

Good and bad news for the construction of a parking garage | Local news

by Deena S. Hawkins on August 8, 2021

LACONIA – The city’s much-criticized parking garage today is both a harbinger of a downtown rebirth and proof of its unstable past.

All commercial space on the ground floor of the three-story structure is let for the first time in recent memory.

At the same time, the city finds itself where it must now decide how to deal with the problems posed by the deteriorating condition of the building.

The city council will be looking into the question of what to do with the facility that was built during the major redevelopment of the city center in the early 1970s as part of urban renewal.

Council is expected to take up the matter on Monday at the request of Councilor Bob Hamel, who chairs the council’s land and buildings committee.

The city owns the second and third levels of the structure, while the land and commercial space under the parking garage is owned by 5623 Real Estate LLC, a private company.

Over the years, the maintenance of the parking lot has become an increasing expense for the city as it has fallen into disrepair.

The city spent more than $ 100,000 in 2015 to pay for emergency repairs and to have the condition of the structure assessed, according to a report prepared for the council by the city’s public works manager, Wes Anderson. Since 2017, he has spent a total of $ 135,000 on annual safety inspections and temporary repairs.

“We spent the money to heal him,” City Manager Scott Myers said Thursday.

In recent years, the council has debated a number of options, including renovating the structure or demolishing it.

Anderson’s report puts the cost of rehabilitation at over $ 4.5 million. The cost of its demolition is estimated at $ 2 million.

Two years ago, Anderson told council it would cost $ 10.8 million to build a new garage, not including the cost of deconstructing the old one. Myers said the cost for a new facility would run between $ 30,000 and $ 35,000 per parking space.

The second terrace of the parking garage also serves as a roof for the buildings under the garage. Parking is allowed on most of the second bridge, although some areas are blocked off due to structural weakness. The entire third bridge has been closed for several years due to structural issues.

The garage is particularly prone to deterioration because its metal frame is exposed to the elements. Additionally, water on the bridges and salt brought in by vehicles over the winter corroded both the structural steel and the steel bridge panels, according to Anderson.

That the council is ready to deal with the parking issue is a good sign. This shows that the demand for parking in the city center is increasing, according to Brandon Borghi, whose family owns the first level of the building and who manages real estate for 5623 Real Estate.

“We have a good problem. People want to come here now, ”Borghi said.

The last vacant space on the ground floor has just been rented to someone who is going to open a juice bar. Filled out, there will be six street-level businesses, including Fit Focus, which Borghi manages.

He hopes the city will decide to make the necessary improvements so that the parking garage can be fully functional again.

Borghi’s family brought the structure to the 28,000 square foot ground floor five years ago. Since then, they have spent money on a new air conditioning system, as well as improved lighting in the premises. Further improvements are planned in the coming months, he said.

Borghi and Myers agree that another parking issue that needs to be addressed is whether to charge for parking.

Borghi said it made sense to charge “a little” for parking in the garage.

Myers said the city needs to thoroughly examine the parking situation, including whether to charge for it.

“How do you charge for garage parking if you don’t charge for street parking?” He wondered. “Where are the reasons people use the garage then?” “

Parking spaces

The only property in Boston for less than $ 200,000? Parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 21, 2021

Zero bedrooms, zero baths, endless possibilities.

Parking meters by Tim pierce via Flickr /Creative Commons

You hit the real estate market. You don’t have much to spend. You are looking for a property in a notoriously expensive market. Well, have we got a deal for you. The best real estate deals in Boston aren’t in one specific area, but in one particular type of real estate: parking spaces.

All right, listen to me. They might be a little flat, but if you want cheap land in town, this is your best chance to be able to say “Yeah, I own a place downtown” (maybe avoid elaborating on the details). And Boston is an unfortunately car-dependent city, so you might argue that owning a parking space is even more desirable than the deed of a high-maintenance house or apartment (you’ll never have one. high electricity bill or the need for a new water heater when you have a parking space).

“Parking never loses value,” says Marcella Sliney, Sales Associate at Coldwell Banker Realty. “It’s an excellent investment.

Not to mention the fact that some parking spots cost as little as $ 60,000, you’ll find that the parking spots are actually the cheapest listings in town (it doesn’t matter if you can buy a one-bedroom condo at that. prices in places like Dallas). Whether in a garage or in the open, we have found some of the most popular parking spaces for sale for you.

Photo via RE / MAX Realty Plus

170, rue Tremont, # 37, Downtown
Price: $ 50,000

This one is for those who like a little luxury. The downtown space has valet parking so you can just leave the keys behind while you enjoy all that downtown has to offer. When you’re ready to go, simply call the valet and the car will be brought to you directly. No more worrying about being late for a show in the Theater District thanks to the T deadlines or searching for a seat again! (Now you can blame all your delays on Boston traffic instead.)

735 Harrison Avenue, South End
Price: $ 70,000

Be careful, big cars! This single garage space is described as oversized, so you won’t have any trouble maneuvering your SUV here. It also offers covered parking in the historically congested South End. Of course, to get that spot, you actually have to be a resident of the South End, a neighborhood where the median price of a home is $ 1 million, according to realtor.com. Oh and did we mention there’s a monthly fee of $ 67 as well? But the end result is still a parking spot in one of the city’s notoriously congested neighborhoods.

151, rue Tremont, unit UL405, downtown
Price: $ 69,000

Weekly cleanings! A full-time attendant! This downtown private garage has it all, including services that your current home doesn’t have. The space on the fourth upper level will give you access to stress-free parking so you can easily get to the center of the Hub. And even better are the views! Located across from the Common, you’ll also enjoy breathtaking views of the city’s best green spaces when entering and exiting the garage, providing just another touch of luxury you won’t find at home.

Zero Bolton D4, Boston South
Price: $ 65,000

Finding parking should be simple and easy with this location, which is one of ten for sale in newly paved lot near the Broadway T stop (buy the set if you really feel like investing!). The exclusive space is for everyone, whether you live in Boston or beyond, and is within walking distance of Southie’s most popular destinations, according to Sliney. You’ll be the envy of all your friends when you have a place to park while they roam the streets looking for a spot or sacrifice their lawn chairs to save space.

1313 Washington St U4A & U4B, south end
Price: $ 140,000

A two for one special that brings you once again to the quite affordable South End Market! You don’t even have to be a resident of this luxury apartment building to purchase this tandem parking space on the upper level of the Willakes Passage condominium’s air-conditioned garage, perfect for a hangout on winter days. The mini-tandem spot is near the elevator and stairs for easy access. A key fob allows you to get in and out of the garage and provides an extra layer of security if parking garages are making you anxious. And while you don’t need to own a spot in the building, you do have to pay condo fees, but luckily they only cost $ 185.26 per month!

Parking garage

The concrete of the Natick mall parking lot was hanging down, pulled from the ceiling

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 19, 2021

NATICK – A Natick mall parking lot is safe after teams identified a piece of concrete that appeared to hang from a ceiling inside the garage, according to Brookfield Properties, the mall owner.

“It does not affect the structural integrity of the garage. This is in no way compromised, ”said Lindsay Kahn, spokesperson for Brookfield Properties.

Following:Another electric car tenant could join Tesla at Natick Mall

The roughly 2 x 1 foot piece of concrete never fell and was removed from the second story ceiling inside Garage C, located across from the old Sears store. It should be fixed within a week, Kahn said.

Mall security took notice of the hanging concrete on Sunday, the mall notified Natick’s fire department and building commissioner, and both sides said there was no need to evacuate the garage, according to Kahn.

Natick’s Fire Department referred the inquiries to Building Commissioner David Gusmini. Gusmini did not return calls and an email requesting comment on Monday.

“We took immediate action,” Kahn said, noting that the garage never closed after the discovery of the hanging concrete. “No one was injured and we are fixing (the concrete).”

Commercial real estate market:Dark clouds fly over the ‘Golden Triangle’ at Natick and Framingham

Garage C is over 25 years old and is inspected regularly by the Brookfield structural engineer, Kahn said.

Henry Schwan is a multimedia reporter for the Daily News. Follow Henry on Twitter @henrymetrowest. He can be reached at [email protected] or 508-626-3964.

Parking spaces

Column: Will the reduction in parking spaces transform San Diego, other cities for the better?

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 11, 2021

The highly controversial removal of parking spaces on 30th Street in North Park to make way for cycle lanes is part of a national trend to rethink the need for vehicle parking in an effort to remake metropolitan areas for the better .

San Diego and many other cities have reduced and eliminated parking requirements that, for decades, have been mandatory for development of almost every kind. At the same time, they replaced parking spaces and vehicle lanes with more pedestrian-friendly streetscapes, open-air restaurant seating, cycle paths and, in some cases, housing.

Urban planners and other supporters of this approach have high expectations for the results: moderating climate change, facilitating lower-cost housing, improving road safety, encouraging healthier lifestyles and increasing social interaction.

Since policies to relax parking mandates are still relatively new across the country – truly in the last few years – not enough time has passed to judge their success in achieving these lofty goals. .

Michael Smolens on the San Diego fix:

Certainly, the idea that less parking will mean all of these good things to its skeptics. Just ask the business owners along 30th Street and their community customers.

“We barely survived COVID, and now that pretty much puts the nail in the coffin,” Liz Saba, owner of Presley & Co., a 30th Street jewelry store, said during a recent protest after the city painted the curbs red in advance of setting up cycle paths.

The 30th Street Protected Bikeways Mobility Project is installing bike lanes from Juniper Street to Adams Avenue. To do this, the city is getting rid of 450 curb parking spaces.

“The city has been pushing projects all over the city, trying to improve safety, and this is just a continuation of that,” Everett Hauser, program manager in the city’s transportation department, told Andrea Lopez-Villafaña of the Union-Tribune of San Diego. .

”. . . This ties in with the other major policy objective, the Climate Action Plan, which has. . . the ultimate goal of reducing our dependence on vehicle travel. (This reduces) emissions and improved bike paths are that perfect candidate, especially in a community like North Park, which is very dense and has destinations close to you.

He added that a limited number of on-street parking will still be available and an underutilized parking garage in North Park will still be available. The city plans to eventually study the economic impact of cycle paths.

Overall, San Diego has eliminated parking requirements for subdivisions within half a mile of transit lanes and reduced them elsewhere. There are no parking requirements for secondary suites, formerly known as “granny flats”, anywhere, which has caused dismay in some suburban neighborhoods.

San Diego is also considering lift parking warrants for businesses in certain regions.

This does not mean that subdivisions and businesses cannot provide parking, but that would be largely left to market forces. As elsewhere, San Diego is preparing to make parking an optional accessory, likely to cost the user directly.

Already, parking spaces are very expensive and occupy valuable real estate.

The city has estimated that parking needs add $ 40,000 to $ 90,000 to the cost of building a home, which can increase rents and mortgages.

Some city planners, like Donald Shoup at UCLA, point out that mandatory parking usually forces people to pay for it even if they aren’t using it. He adds that the so-called “free parking” – in parking lots and on city streets – simply encourages driving while depriving cities of more land use and increased tax revenues. arise.

Limiting parking and making it more expensive, for example through higher meter charges at certain times of the day, is not universally supported. Nor does the notion of limiting when and where people can drive or charging congestion charges for driving in specific areas during rush hour.

Experts say such disincentives only work if there are practical transportation alternatives. San Diego and many other cities don’t, at least not to the extent that it drastically changes the way people travel.

There is a lot of ambition for a great expansion of public transit at the municipal, state and federal levels. We won’t know how these plans unfold for years to come. Meanwhile, the age-old political battle of roads versus public transportation doesn’t seem to be going away.

What also doesn’t seem to be going away, however, is the tendency to revamp the parking strategy. Buffalo, NY, became the first city in the United States stop requiring that development projects include at least a minimum number of parking spaces, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Other cities across the country, including San Diego, have adopted similar measures.

The California legislature has grappled with parking requirements in past legislation, and more are on the way. Many policies, like the one in San Diego, do away with warrants within half a mile of transit. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can be a long walk if a bike or other alternative isn’t available or feasible.

One of the big concerns in getting people to stop using their cars has been to fill the so-called “first mile, last mile” gap that many face in getting from home to transit to their destination and back. . The same problem arises for half a mile. In San Diego, smart cars, scooters, and dockless bike rentals haven’t been the answer so far.

American car culture really exploded after WWII, with the growth of suburbs and highways. That was over half a century ago.

As government leaders and planners seek to move towards denser housing with access to nearby commercial, recreational and social spaces, the discussion tends to focus on zoning redesigns and transit solutions.

But the fate of the small parking lot can play a disproportionate role in all of this.

In 2018, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit District The board agreed to build affordable housing in its parking lots which officials said were not being used enough. It could be a sign of things to come.

Tweet of the week

Go to the San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut), referring to a story that highlights the state of local politics.

“Republicans who want to keep just one seat on San Diego city council still need to find a candidate.”

Parking spaces

Cut in the looms of Auckland public parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on April 27, 2021

First published on April 27, 2021
Updated Apr 27, 2021

Auckland

Short-term parking in the CBD is expected to become more expensive, with the expected loss of half of Auckland Transport’s subsidized parking spaces.

On-street parking in central Auckland has been cut by more than half, and plans to keep some short-term parking lots subsidized by the City Council in the redevelopment of the downtown parking lot site are also underway. doubt.

The issue highlights tensions between a council that seeks to promote public transport and make the CBD pedestrian and bike-friendly, and the city’s businesses wanting to preserve easy access for shoppers and diners.

The council-owned downtown parking lot has 1,148 short-term parks, but its redevelopment is planned with the intention of selling it and turning its lower floors into a bus station with a new building at the top.

Auckland Transport’s plan presented to the council’s planning committee calls for retaining between 400 and 600 of the cheapest occasional parking spaces, which it says are intended to support the economic and cultural dynamism of the city center.

However, some councilors are concerned that maintaining short-term parking will run counter to council’s commitment to move away from supporting private vehicles.

Planning documents such as the City Center Masterplan’s Access 4 Everyone transport strategy call for limits on motorized traffic in the CBD and a transition to walking, cycling and public transport.

“My personal view is that maintaining parking lots for single occupant vehicles, even if it is for a short stay, is incompatible with the Masterplan and Access 4 Everyone,” said Councilor Chris Darby, Chairman of the planning committee that heard Auckland Transport’s proposal.

Darby says he finds it hard to see the case for the council offering discounted parking in the CBD when many private companies are already doing so.

“It comes at a cost to Aucklanders,” he said. “Strategically, it is incompatible with these planning documents.”

Waitematā advisor Pippa Coom says she wants to see more information from Auckland Transport showing exactly how her plan matches the board’s emissions targets and budget.

“It’s not about preventing people from entering the city,” she said.

“The question is: is it in the interest of the taxpayer to subsidize parking on prime real estate? “

The proposal is the latest in a long period of council-backed parking abandonment in the CBD.

Auckland Transport’s on-street parking in the city center has grown from 5,000 to 2,460 spaces over the past decade. Meanwhile, the price of longer-term suburban parking has more than doubled over this period to a high of $ 40 per day.

In a statement to Newsroom, Auckland Transport said the loss of downtown parking space would not have a huge impact on businesses.

“AT is not the main provider of car parks in central Auckland. Currently the Downtown car park has 1944 spaces…. less than 4% of city parking.

However, the Heart of the City Downtown Business Association says the loss of Auckland Transport’s cheaper parking spots could result in a loss for local businesses as shoppers choose to go elsewhere.

“These parks are vital for people who come to shop and have fun,” said Heart of the City Executive Director Viv Beck. “It’s more affordable and it makes the place more accessible. Not everyone has access to public transport yet.

Auckland Transport data shows that most people use short-term parking in the city for business, shopping and entertainment. A recent survey suggests that 75 percent of the people parked in the downtown building during off-peak hours were there for entertainment, dining, or shopping.

However, Auckland Transport’s advice suggests that maintaining short-term parking in the building will also continue to attract cars to the area, going against the council’s plans to encourage people to use public transport. common.

The loss of parking lots in the downtown building, along with the removal of on-street parking in favor of walking and cycling, will likely result in higher overall costs for people driving in the downtown area. While some shifts to public transport are likely, Auckland Transport says there is also a risk that people will choose to go elsewhere for shopping and entertainment.

However Coom is not convinced.

“They have to be upfront about what they want,” she said. “If they want income from parking, they have to say it instead of hiding behind it, talk about the commercial and cultural dynamism of the downtown area.”

Another option is to leave the parking lot to the developer who decides to buy the site. This is the option preferred by Coom and Darby.

“Nothing prevents the successful tenderer from providing parking if necessary,” says Darby.

While a decision has yet to be made, Darby doubts the board will force the successful bidder to provide short-term parking as part of a potential deal. Instead, he expects to ask the company to provide parking, micro-freight and cycling infrastructure.

The matter could be settled at a meeting of the planning committee in June.

Parking spaces

How cities are reclaiming street parking spaces for public use

by Deena S. Hawkins on March 31, 2021

Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in American history, has said the best possible investment is real estate in New York City. More than 150 years after his death, his words turned out to be premonitory: real estate prices in the Big Apple have reached astronomical levels that even the Commodore himself could never have imagined. It’s easy to see why. Manhattan is an island, space is limited and demand will always exceed supply. Buildings may get taller and taller to accommodate a growing population, but they no longer make ground on them. But what if we all wake up one day and find that New York actually has over 20 square miles of land that no one has noticed before?

Today is that day.

Most people don’t think about parking spaces on the street. They are just a fact of life that we all grew up with and that we all accept as normal. People get into their cars, pull over to a sidewalk, enter a store or office, then get back into their car. Pretty simple, right? It’s also incredibly inefficient, it contributes to pollution and ultimately benefits a few people while bothering millions of others. The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed just about every aspect of our lives, and it has also given us the opportunity to take a step back and really reassess where we want our urban areas to go. And one of the main achievements is that street parking is detrimental to the life of a city.

There is nothing good about the pandemic, and I certainly don’t want to downplay the catastrophic effect it has had on so many families and businesses in the United States. It is nothing less than a national tragedy. But the massive changes caused by the virus have given us a unique opportunity to see how cities can be improved. In the end, none of us were prepared for the pandemic and our infrastructure was not up to par. The only reason we made it through last year was the heroic efforts of millions of people, including city and county officials who burned midnight oil to find solutions to a consuming problem. that no one had ever considered. event.

The Smart Cities Collaborative recently published a special report titled Covid and the sidewalk which explores how cities are making radical changes to street parking. Some jurisdictions actually create curbside parks that turn streets into bustling areas where people can meet and connect. Others are creating transit and bicycle lanes to reduce congestion. There isn’t just one right way to do it, but what is increasingly evident is that now is the time for innovative thinking.

The pandemic may have accelerated this conversation, but it has been going on for some time. Two years ago, the City Journal made a strong case to replace street parking with better options, and Bloomberg find that street space in Manhattan (most of which is free) had a real value of over $ 6,000 (per year?). It’s a lose-lose for everyone except someone from Westchester who wants to hit town for a night out, and that’s not a compelling enough reason to make 44% of Manhattan’s streets unusable. Most of New York’s two-lane streets are actually 50 percent blocked four-lane roads. If you’ve ever spent 45 minutes trying to walk six blocks during rush hour, you know how maddening it is.

The problem, of course, is people are still driving, and that won’t change next year. Thanks to the pandemic, fewer people are using public transportation in most U.S. cities, even as work-from-home policies have become the norm. How to reconcile the desire to reclaim parking lanes with the increase in the number of drivers? The good news is that this is not an insurmountable problem because it is not a situation of choice. This is where parking garages can alleviate just about any problem caused by street spaces without sacrificing drivers’ ability to safely access their workplaces.

At a basic level, this may sound a little optimistic. After all, as anyone who has walked in circles to park in a densely populated city like San Francisco knows, there never seems to be enough garages. But the reality is much more complicated: there are actually a lot of garages in just about every city, but in many cases these are not the “right kind” of garages. So while there may be waiting lists to get a coveted spot in a downtown office tower, it’s likely that a hotel three blocks away or an apartment building from the across the street has additional underutilized spaces. It is not a problem of supply and demand: it is a problem of information exchange. And cities that can figure out how to use empty parking spaces will have a lot more flexibility in their ability to reduce or eliminate on-street parking and reclaim thousands of square kilometers of prime urban properties for everyone to enjoy. can use and enjoy them.

Jeremy Zuker is the co-founder of WhereiPark, a technology company that enables owners of multi-family residential and commercial buildings to discover new sources of revenue through innovative solutions that exploit unused parking spaces.

Parking spaces

Should blind people in Berkeley be forced to buy parking spaces? – Streetsblog California

by Deena S. Hawkins on January 25, 2021

At 4 p.m. Tuesday, Berkeley City Council is expected to address the subject of parking regulations. The reforms recommended by the Planning Commission would remove the minimum parking requirements for all residential land uses, with the exception of certain lots located on roads less than 26 feet wide in hillside areas. The Planning Commission also recommends the adoption of maximum parking limits and the establishment of requirements for managing transport demand for residential uses.

City Councilor Sophie Hahn proposed to maintain the current minimum parking requirements in all Hillside Overlay areas, which would mean continuing to force the inclusion of parking in residential buildings adjacent to UC Berkeley, where residents ( mostly students) are the least likely to own a car. It also recommends continuing to require disabled parking spaces in large residential buildings.

What is the best approach? To understand this, think about what minimum parking laws do, who pays the cost of complying with them, and how they affect people with disabilities.

Minimum parking regulations specify the minimum number of parking spaces that must be provided for each land use. The cost of bringing them into compliance is high. In the Bay Area, the cost of constructing, operating and maintaining a parking garage typically exceeds $ 300 per month per parking space, annually, for the expected 35-year useful life of the parking garage. the structure.

Builders pay for this parking lot, but they pass the cost on in the form of higher rents. Researched by CJ Gabbe from the University of Santa Clara and Gregory Pierce from UCLA found that nationally, bundling the cost of a garage space into rents adds about 17 percent to a unit’s rent.

“Minimum parking requirements create a major equity issue for car-less households,” write the study’s authors. Regulations force people without a car – usually on low incomes – to pay higher rents for parking that they do not need and cannot use.

For people with disabilities, the charges imposed by minimum parking regulations can be particularly significant. This is because people with disabilities are less likely to drive. At national scale, only about 65 percent of people with disabilities drive a car, compared to 88 percent of able-bodied people. Blind people and those who cannot drive often live in urban areas where they can meet many of their daily needs on foot, by public transport or by taxi. In many parts of the city, for example, less than half of people with disabilities drive.

The minimum parking requirements act like a matching grant program – limited to those who can find a way to match the grant. The high cost of keeping them raises rents for everyone, but only those who are wealthy enough to buy, insure, refuel and maintain an automobile benefit.

In addition, you must be able to pass a driving license test. For millions of Americans with disabilities, these two barriers are too many. About 13% of American adults say they have difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses or contact lenses. Many more Americans cannot drive because of strokes, developmental disabilities, or other disabilities. Others cannot afford a car.

Minimum parking regulations often increase rents for people with disabilities who cannot drive, mistakenly thinking that this creates “free” parking for everyone – but especially for able-bodied people with higher incomes.

In the worst case, rent increases caused by minimum parking regulations lead to homelessness. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development Annual Homelessness Assessment Report 2008 found that about 43 percent of people in homeless shelters had some form of disability. Too often Americans with disabilities end up sleeping in doorways, under freeways, or in unheated garages.

Cities across America have now recognized the unintentional damage caused by minimum parking regulations and have adopted reforms to repair the damage. Two key reforms are:

1. Remove minimum parking regulations. Progressive cities like Buffalo, Edmonton, Emeryville, Hartford, Hudson (NY) and San Francisco have removed minimum parking requirements throughout the city. Many others, including Fremont, Hayward, Lancaster, Los Angeles, Mountain View, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, and Santa Monica have removed them in some neighborhoods.

Removing parking minimums benefits people with disabilities in several ways. For some, this can make home ownership possible. UC Berkeley researchers Wenyu Jia and Martin Wachs found that in San Francisco, twenty percent more households could qualify for loans on condominiums that do not include parking.

Others may convert unused garages into homes. The average rent for a studio in Berkeley is around $ 1,800 per month. A Berkeley homeowner with a failing eyesight or other disability that makes owning a car unnecessary could use a home equity loan to convert their garage into an apartment. This could pay for many taxi rides, while still providing modest accommodation for someone in need.

Removing mandatory requirements for the construction of parking lots does not mean that new developments will not have parking. It just makes parking an optional convenience, rather than a mandatory purchase. This gives everyone the opportunity to save money by owning fewer cars.

Provision and use of off-street parking in Berkeley subdivisions. Source: Nelson Nygaard Associates — Provision and use of off-street parking in existing Berkeley subdivisions. Source: Nelson Nygaard Associates

It also opens up new parking possibilities. In San Francisco, new car-free homes often offer the option of renting excess parking in neighboring buildings. If Berkeley removes the minimum parking laws, the same phenomenon is likely to emerge.

A recent study commissioned by the City of Berkeley found that minimum parking regulations created so much excess parking that in the average Berkeley apartment building, 45 percent of the off-street parking supply is vacant during the hours when it is most in demand. In apartment buildings below the market price, 58 percent of off-street parking is vacant – unused and unnecessary – during peak hours. Removing minimum parking regulations will allow this existing but wasted space to be used or converted to better use.

2. Place the housing first. San Francisco no longer spends meager public money to build parking lots in its below-market real estate developments.

Octavia Court, for example, offers fifteen affordable housing units for people with developmental disabilities and their families. Making the project a car-free building served three purposes: it reduced the cost per house, allowing the city to build more houses with its limited funds; he maximized the number of apartments that could fit on the constrained site; and it has avoided spending money on expensive equipment – parking – that its residents with developmental disabilities will never be able to use. San Francisco realized a simple truth: When thousands of Americans with disabilities live on the streets, the meager funds allocated to affordable housing should not be used to subsidize cars.

Some Americans – including some of my family – have disabilities and drive. It is important to meet their needs, allowing new apartment buildings to include parking for those who want it. But people who can’t afford or choose not to own a car should never have to pay for a parking space they can’t use.

And blind people shouldn’t have to pay for parking spaces they don’t need and can’t use.

Patrick Siegman is a transportation planner and economist. While a director at Nelson Nygaard Consulting, he led the Parking and Transportation Demand Management Study in Downtown Berkeley and the UC Berkeley Parking and Transportation Demand Management Master Plan.

Parking garage

Des Moines could buy foreclosed The Fifth parking garage for $ 40.5 million

by Deena S. Hawkins on January 11, 2021

The city of Des Moines could shell out around $ 40.5 million to buy a 751-space parking lot, part of a downtown complex called The Fifth that is in foreclosure after developers fail to pay a loan to construction.

Des Moines has offered to buy the 11-story parking lot, which is now “essentially complete,” at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Walnut Street, according to a petition filed Friday night. The final price will vary as the loan earns $ 3,306.40 in interest daily. The actual value of the structure is also unclear as far fewer employees work and park downtown during the pandemic, and it’s unclear how many will return.

The garage is the first of three buildings, including a 40-story skyscraper, planned for the complex. The future of The Fifth is uncertain amid ongoing legal action.

Bankers Trust Co. and Christensen Development, whom a court appointed to oversee the completion of the garage, filed a fast-track application to have the court allow the sale because “the delays increase costs at a substantial rate given the amounts owed. “, indicates the query. Christensen Development was granted permission to sell the garage when it was appointed receiver in October.

The city also requested an expedited hearing on Monday, according to a statement from City Manager Scott Sanders.

It’s unclear whether the city would operate the parking garage to recoup the $ 40.5 million spent to buy the property or attempt to sell it to another owner.

Sanders declined to comment further.

The progress of the $ 170 million project has been marred by delays, which is the main point of contention for the ongoing legal proceedings.

Plans call for the garage to form the base of the 40-story tower, which would house apartments, a 21C hotel-museum. and a bar. A separate five-story building would house an Alamo Drafthouse cinema as well as two floors of offices and a restaurant on the ground floor.

Mandelbaum Properties won a bid in 2017 to develop the city-owned site, which previously housed a dilapidated parking lot. Under a complex development agreement, the company had to have completed the garage by August 16, 2020 and have started construction of the tower by October 31, 2019. In return, the city granted it a forgivable loan of $ 4 million and up to $ 10 million in tax rebates.

Des Moines filed a notice of default against the developer in June for failing to meet these deadlines.

In September, Bankers Trust Co. filed a foreclosure petition against Justin and Sean Mandelbaum and 5th and Walnut LLC, alleging that they had failed to pay a $ 48 million loan for the garage that was due the previous month. The property was to go up for sale immediately – with the city listed as a junior lien holder – unless the developers ask for a delay, according to the petition.

A week after the lockdown, the Mandelbaum brothers filed a counterclaim seeking $ 101 million in damages from the city. They alleged that Des Moines officials committed “flagrant violations” of the development agreement, falsely declaring the project in default and ultimately triggering the foreclosure petition. The cross-claim seeks a temporary injunction preventing the city from recovering the property.

► More:Faced with default, developers of downtown Des Moines skyscraper sue city for $ 101 million

Todd Lantz, attorney for the Mandelbaums, said in a statement that the proposed sale “comes as no surprise.”

“In fact, it confirms exactly what our clients alleged in their lawsuit against the city last fall – that the city’s multiple and inexcusable violations of its development agreement were designed to get the project back in hand,” said Lantz.

A rendering of the Alamo Drafthouse cinema in "The fifth" in downtown Des Moines.

Justin Mandelbaum previously told the Des Moines Register that his company had requested time extensions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous negotiations for the extensions, carried out in late 2019 and throughout 2020 as Justin Mandelbaum said construction documents were being finalized, never resulted in formal agreements approved by city council. The city even offered an additional payment of $ 2 million after the tower was completed, although that provision never received a council vote.

If the sale is approved, the foreclosure petition against the Mandelbaums would be dismissed and Christensen Development would no longer act as receiver.

In the sale proposal, Bankers Trust attorney Mark Rice wrote that neither the bank nor Christensen Development believed they could sell the garage for a higher price if they were to proceed with a foreclosure sale.

The real estate market for this type of property is limited, they argue in the motion. The two declined to comment when contacted by the Registry.

Des Moines currently has seven downtown parking garages. A 2016 analysis showed that aging ramps saw their annual revenues fall by $ 3 million over five years, and garages had a deficit of $ 19.1 million over a decade.

At the time, city leaders talked about reducing the number of city-owned spaces, increasing parking fees, and even subsidizing bus passes and Uber riders. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced the number of workers driving downtown, as many businesses have moved to virtual operations. A major downtown employer, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., offered one of their buildings for rent.

It is not known what impact additional parking would have on the city budget, especially one of this price. By comparison, a 600-space parking garage at 402 E. Second St. cost about $ 20 million to build.

Des Moines City Council is expected to authorize the purchase of The Fifth parking lot and a judge is expected to approve the motion before it can go to council. This approval is expected to arrive before January 21 to be included on the January 25 meeting agenda.

The bank hopes to finalize the sale by March 31.

Meanwhile, Lantz, the Mandelbaums’ attorney, said the developers hope to continue working on the rest of the project, including the hotel and the apartment tower. The garage’s sale price is about $ 8 million less than the original loan, which “confirms that the Mandelbaums were on track to complete the parking lot several million dollars less than budget,” he said. -he declares.

“The city’s actions last summer and now are focused on confiscating these savings, even though the savings were contractually promised to the developer,” Lantz said in a statement. “The Mandelbaums expect similar success if they are allowed to build the remainder of this large mixed-use project downtown. “

Kim Norvell covers Growth and Development for the Registry. Contact her at [email protected] or 515-284-8259. Follow her on twitter @KimNorvellDMR.

Parking garage

How parking garage conversions can help fight overbuilding

by Deena S. Hawkins on December 23, 2020

The excess supply of parking spaces for office buildings continues to be inefficient in terms of capital expenditure and material waste.

I first wrote about the unrealistic parking ratios expected by the real estate brokerage community in 2018. Brokers continue to operate on the principle of protecting the tenants they represent, and CMBS lenders continue to regularly dictate parking requirements that far exceed the current or future needs of corporate office facilities. Four parking spaces per 1,000 rentable square feet of office space is an outdated standard that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of rarely or never used parking spaces.

One of the area’s most successful developers, Granite Properties, has completed a formal study in its Granite Park which continues to serve as a relevant measure and clearly identifies the problem of excessive parking in suburban office buildings. His study found that 2,600 parking spaces at his mixed-use complex had never been used.

BOKA Powell estimates that the order of magnitude of the investment in this unused space is equivalent to just under $ 40 million: 28,000 cubic meters of concrete placed, 144,000 man-hours spent on construction and 819,000 square feet of rigid, single-use concrete structure. Opponents say that as buildings age, the tenant category drops a notch or two, resulting in more office uses at the back of the house (i.e., office space).

But will he do it?

Vertically integrated podium parking

It is likely that after COVID, parking demand trends will continue as they did before, indicating an increased reliance on rental cars, carpooling and the use of public transportation. Autonomous vehicles are likely to become more common over the next decade, and the demand for car parking will decline over time.

So what is the alternative to the single use parking structure?

The solution is to integrate podium parking in high and mid-rise office buildings vertically in its simplest form. Rather than imagine converting parking spaces into offices, imagine building future office base and envelope spaces and use part of the building for parking until those parking spaces are no longer needed.

Office buildings and parking lots are fundamentally different types of occupancy and types of construction. The differences are substantial and include different heights from floor to floor, different live loads (surprisingly offices require 2.5 times the load capacity), floor flatness considerations, ventilation, requirements temperature control, fire extinguishing systems and output requirements.

Ironically, many recently built garages are clad in materials designed to match the office buildings they support, including glass curtain walls, architectural composite metal panels, and architectural precast concrete. Mechanical ventilation of garages in these cases is common.

The more the garage matches the quality of the windows of the office tower, the easier it is to jump while protecting some or all of the parking floors integrated into the integrated structure.

Ideally, individual floors can be decommissioned as parking floors and returned to service as an office from the top of the garage down. Major technical challenges need to be overcome, such as the connectivity of the intermediate parking levels to the external ramps, as shown in the graph. Central cooling installations also need to be designed to accommodate future office conversion and require additional chillers, pumps and fresh air supply. Aftermarket elevator shafts may offer the flexibility to add elevator cabins and machines in conjunction with office floor conversions, or elevator capacity may be overloaded early on (if the number of floors to be converted does not exceed the capacity of the base building’s transport system).

Cost-benefit analysis

In 2020, the initial cost to add a floor of white counters ranged from $ 160 to $ 190 per square foot. The cost of building a conventional podium garage level, clad in materials to match the office building (but without increasing floor to floor height or increasing payload) ranges from $ 90 at $ 110 per square foot. Increasing the garage floor-to-floor height and payload capacity will add $ 20 to $ 30 per square foot. The initial overhead to build a future proof garage level will be $ 60 to $ 70 per square foot.

Therefore, consider the benefit of adding multiple floors of office space over the next decade, where the cost of converting to add bathrooms, ventilation rooms, power distribution, fiber distribution, and access. to elevators is less than $ 60 per square foot, compared to $ 160 to $ 190 per square foot (adjusted for inflation) to build additional office floor space.

If municipalities are serious about reducing the footprint of conventional, rigid and inefficient parking lots, they should consider offering an incentive in the form of tax credits or construction cost subsidies for sustainable garages.

I urge other members of the real estate community to join the fight for the right size parking lots and commit to providing thought leadership and further study to encourage the sustainability of parking structures and minimize the effects. long-term negatives created by overconstruction of the parking lot.

Don Powell is a partner and primary manager of BOKA Powell.

Parking spaces

Nichols rushes to buy Cherry Creek parking spots in town, complicating redevelopment plans

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 13, 2020

An entrance to the parking structure at Clayton Lane in Cherry Creek. (BizDen file photo)

The city of Denver sold its share of a parking lot in Cherry Creek – but not to the city council-approved buyer in early 2019.

On June 22, 18 months after city leaders signed a sale of 198 parking spaces in the garage north of Whole Foods to Clayton Lane Investors LLC – which owns the rest of the structure – the city instead sold the places at Nichols Partnership, based in Denver.

The sale complicates long-discussed plans to redevelop the area, and public records show Clayton Lane Investors made a last-minute effort in court to prevent the sale. But it was a failure.

Background

The 198 parking spaces in the center of the case are on the two upper levels of the garage along 2nd Avenue, next to the grocery store.

The city bought the parking spaces in March 2003 for $ 4.7 million, according to public records. Jeff Steinberg, the city’s real estate manager, told city council members in 2018 that the sites had been purchased so the city could rent them cheaply to Cherry Creek retail employees. At the time, the shopping district had few parking meters, so workers parked on the street, making it difficult for shoppers to find a spot.

The idea didn’t work out as well as expected, Steinberg said at the time.

The 198 spaces only include part of the garage. The rest is owned by Clayton Lane Investors, a partnership between Brookfield and Invesco Real Estate. This entity owns a large portion of the property between 1st and 2nd avenues from Josephine Street to Detroit Street. Its holdings include the building used by Whole Foods and the former Sears store, which has been vacant since 2015. The neighborhood is known as Clayton Lane.

Clayton Lane Investors had previously indicated that he wanted to redevelop the site. In 2016, at a national real estate conference in Las Vegas, OliverMcMillan – which Brookfield acquired in 2018 – presented renderings showing a new Whole Foods erected on what is currently the store’s parking lot.

A rendering of the planned Whole Foods. (BizDen file)

In 2018, city staff asked council members to approve the sale of the 198 spaces for $ 6 million to Clayton Lane Investors. Steinberg said the garage was to be demolished as part of the planned redevelopment and that Clayton Lane Investors was to buy back parts of the site that it did not own. A spokesperson for the company disputed this characterization at the time, saying there was “no current plan to demolish the structure” and that the company planned to purchase the spaces so that it could “exploit structure more efficiently “.

The Council approved the agreement on January 2, 2019.

The sale

In the end, the city did not sell the parking spaces to Clayton Lane Investors.

Instead, on June 22, Nichols Partnership, acting as Clayton Street Associates LLC, purchased the spaces for $ 6 million, the same price Clayton Lane had planned to pay, according to public records.

Nichols is a leading Denver development company. The company has developed an office building on Platte Street, where coworking company Galvanize operates, and earlier this year opened a second a short distance away. The company is also planning to redevelop the old Art Institute of Colorado building on Capitol Hill.

Nichols is also the original developer of Clayton Lane and built the parking garage.

The trial

Court documents provide details of what happened between January 2019 and June 22.

On June 15, a week before the sale to Nichols closed, Clayton Lane Investors sued both the company and the city in an attempt to stop the transaction.

The lawsuit indicates that Clayton Lane Investors are still planning to redevelop the area and portray this as something that will significantly benefit the city.

“The redeveloped property will include, among other things,…. residential and new retail and will replace current Whole Foods with state-of-the-art Whole Foods, ”the lawsuit said. “The unsightly surface parking currently on the property will be moved underground as the development will have approximately 1,500 underground parking spaces, which will increase the number of parking spaces at Cherry Creek… In addition, the development includes redevelopment and use of the now vacant building that uses (d) to house Sears.

In the lawsuit, Clayton Lane Investors said the sale did not go through because the city determined that, as part of the deal it acquired the spaces in 2003, if the city wanted to sell the spaces , it was to give Nichols Partnership the first opportunity to purchase them – a concept known as the right of first refusal.

Clayton Lane Investors argued in the lawsuit that the sale to Nichols should not be allowed because, while the board had approved a sale of the spaces to Clayton Lane Investors, the agency had not directly approved a sale to Nichols. And a sale to Nichols would not incentivize a redevelopment that would benefit the city, as Nichols would only own part of the structure.

Brookfield did not respond to a request for comment. Lawyers Lawrence Katz and Jason Spitalnick of Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher represented Clayton Lane Investors in the litigation. Katz did not respond to a request for comment.

The city’s response

In an affidavit filed in court, Josh Laipply, director of projects for the City of Denver, said Clayton Lane Investors was made aware of the right of first refusal in October 2018, prior to council approval of the deal. Clayton Lane said at the time “that they bought all the rights and they will compensate them in a purchase contract,” he said.

Clayton Lane Investors signed a contract to purchase the parking spaces in January 2019, days after the board approved the deal. The purchase contract gave Clayton Lane the responsibility of handling the right of first refusal, Laipply said.

Laipply said the city has granted Clayton Lane Investors 11 extensions lasting about eight months “to resolve issues with” the right of first refusal. But on October 11, 2019, the city told the entity it was unwilling to expand further. Clayton Lane Investors sent a letter terminating the purchase contract that day, he said.

In February 2020, Nichols Partnership “chose to exercise its rights” to purchase the spaces for the $ 6 million that Clayton Lane Investors would have paid, Laipply said.

The deal with Nichols was not submitted to council because, in reality, it had already been approved by city leaders in 2002, when the city initially agreed to purchase the spaces, Laipply said.

Clayton Lane Investors’ argument failed to sway a judge and the deal with Nichols was made on schedule.

Nichols on the case

Randy Nichols

Randy Nichols, president and founder of Nichols Partners, told BusinessDen he closed the deal for one simple reason: it was a good deal.

“We had that right of first refusal, and we looked at the price and felt it was a good deal, knowing the cost of building a parking lot in an area like Cherry Creek,” he said.

Nichols said Clayton Lane Investors “was probably unaware” of her company’s right of first refusal when she initially purchased Whole Foods and part of the parking lot because the town spaces were not part of it. ‘OK.

“They did a title search on the property they bought, but had no reason to do a title search on the property they weren’t buying,” he said.

Nichols agreed the city had informed Clayton Lane Investors of the right of first refusal before the deal was presented to council. But he said the company never contacted him about it until the board approved the sale in January 2019.

The deal puts Nichols in a strong position. The garage cannot be demolished unless it agrees to sell its spaces, or some other sort of agreement.

“We did not come to a common understanding on what might happen,” he said. “They would obviously like to control it.”

But Nichols said he’s not the only one Clayton Lane investors need to woo. Whole Foods is in the middle of a long-term lease on its existing building, and as far as he knows, the grocer has not accepted a deal either.

“They have a few different areas that they need to consolidate… They are obviously not ready to move forward,” Nichols said.

Parking facilities

Redesigned parking lots in post-COVID-19 Atlanta

by Deena S. Hawkins on April 6, 2020

By Maxine Hicks and Andrew Much, DLA Piper

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis has profoundly impacted the way we will work, shop and choose to travel by car in the years to come. For example, most of us have now learned to telecommute effectively and have become adept at using home video conferencing. These changes in the way we work and live will have a fundamental impact on Atlanta’s real estate market and will accelerate trends already underway for a reduced need for parking spaces in the city’s core market areas. This article examines the adaptive reuse of parking spaces as the demand for such spaces declines and the trend toward vacant parking spaces accelerates.

The United States has up to two billion parking spaces for approximately 250 million cars. Donald Shoup, a professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, notes that the total area of parking per car in the United States is now greater than the area of housing per person. Many of these spaces are less likely to be used in the future due to work-from-home trends, e-commerce, increasing urbanization, and the recessionary economic conditions which may make it more difficult for individuals to own, operate and pay to park their vehicle. A number of malls and big-box retailers have already closed or have been significantly affected by changing shopping habits. Planned closures of existing retail, restaurant and hospitality facilities due to current conditions in the coming months are expected to result in additional buildings and associated parking facilities being available for redevelopment. Additionally, ride-sharing services have reduced levels of private car ownership, and a future transition to self-driving vehicles will significantly add to an additional surplus of long-term parking spaces.

Historically, city zoning codes required a minimum number of parking spaces based on property use, contributing to the current parking glut. Atlanta’s zoning code was recently amended to address this issue by limiting (or outright eliminating in some cases) the minimum number of parking spaces and/or instituting parking maximums for certain uses or districts. zoning. The City is also considering parking fees to encourage downtown development and generate revenue for needed infrastructure improvements.

Structured parking lots are generally unsightly and impede urban walking. Such facilities are extremely expensive to develop and maintain, which in some cases can consume up to a third of the total construction costs of the project. Relaxed parking requirements and other regulatory innovations will lead to lower project costs (making future affordable housing projects more economically viable), foster opportunities for innovative project designs, establish more pleasant streetscapes walkable and aesthetic and will create increasingly valuable redevelopment opportunities for developers by converting underutilized housing. spaces to more productive uses.

Parking technologies are already being used to maximize the efficient use of existing facilities, including digital technologies to enable dynamic pricing and the use of sensors and data analytics. Mixed-use projects requiring parking lots use some of these technologies to establish flexible, shared parking regimes. For example, we have already seen car parks developed or otherwise used for sports venues that are not only used for home games, but also serve the needs of nearby retail customers, office tenants and retail tenants. apartments. Such arrangements usually require the thoughtful collaboration of developers, design and engineering teams, as well as lawyers to memorize the arrangement well.

Communities are increasingly converting underutilized parking facilities into valuable assets. Public-private partnerships have succeeded in redeveloping parking lots into complete mixed-use projects such as City Springs in Sandy Springs, much of which has been developed on the former location of a surface parking lot.

Innovative parking projects are underway nationally and internationally, including projects using a flexible design for new terraces through the use of flat floors, higher ceilings and exterior ramps to facilitate their later conversion into usable rental space and the reuse of existing underground garages as “last mile” logistics facilities.

The creative and adaptive reuse of parking lots will remain a key goal for developers and building owners in the years to come. The key for all investors is to stay ahead of these trends and be well positioned for incremental changes as demand for parking spaces declines. There are many opportunities for Atlanta to become a national leader in developing these innovative solutions.

***

Maxine Hicks is location manager for DLA Piper’s real estate practice and global co-chair of infrastructure, construction and transportation. She focuses her practice on real estate development with particular emphasis on large mixed-use and transit-oriented developments, including destinations for stadium, entertainment, hospitality, club and center projects. resort. She is a long-time member of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and a member of ULI’s Community Development Council.

Andrew Much is a lawyer with DLA Piper and focuses his practice on commercial real estate transactions, with an emphasis on the development, acquisition, disposition, leasing, management and financing of complex mixed-use developments, communities planned, transit-oriented, stadium, hospitality, golf, marina, club and resort developments across North America. He is also a member of the Urban Land Institute.

Parking spaces

Pitt Article Shows Parking Spaces Near East Liberty Bus Station 30% Underutilized | News | Pittsburgh

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 16, 2019

CP Photo: Aaron Warnick

East Liberty Bus Station

As a rule, new developments come with new parking spaces.

Most people in Pittsburgh travel by car, and developers assume that most people visiting their new retail and housing structures will need parking spaces. As a result, developers tend to build a lot of parking. However, there are pockets in Pittsburgh where this logic does not work. According to a 2018 report by a University of Pittsburgh graduate student, one of these areas appears to be near the East Liberty bus station.

The report is titled “Measuring the Parking Characteristics of Transit Oriented Development” and it examines the use of large parking structures near the MLK East Busway station in East Liberty. It was written by a then graduate student at Pitt.

Three parking structures near the bus station were analyzed: the Target garages, the Eastside Bond apartment complex, and the Walnut on Highland apartment building. These garages, according to the study, are all considered a Transit Focused Development (TOD) because they are so close to a busy transit station, the East Liberty Bus Station, not to mention several other popular bus stops.

Data was collected from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. over three days in 2018: Tue 9 October, Thu 11 October and Sat 20 October.

The article’s findings indicate that all three stations oversized their parking structures by 30 percent.

“When you compare the actual usage to the built capacity of each TOD and the total study area, the usage rate is between 52% and 70% during the weekend rush hour and during the week, ”reads the report. This means that these TODs were at least 30% oversized at the time of construction.

Click to enlarge

Screenshot of the report

East Liberty Study Area Showing Transit Focused Development

This study adds context to a battle over parking spaces currently taking place during the redevelopment of Shakespeare Giant Eagle in Shadyside. The developers want to build 492 parking spaces in the planned grocery / housing complex located just meters from the East Liberty bus station.

Advocates want the developer to build fewer parking lots and have caused them to reduce the number of spaces to 550, but they believe that number could be reduced even further. Housing and transit advocates believe the money saved could be used to build more affordable housing or to pay for transit passes for residents of the new complex.

The developers disagree. John Clarkson of Greystar Real Estate Partners, who is working on the apartments for Shakespeare’s proposal, said CP in September that he recognizes that developers should build projects with less parking, but that in this case the demand is there.

“We don’t want to build more parking,” Clarkson said. “But for now, I would say we need a parking lot for this project. ”

The report also shows that there are already too many off-street parking spaces in this area.

Eastside Bond Garage has a total of 554 parking spaces. The garage is open to the public during the day and there are also a number of rented parking spaces for residents of the 360 housing units. Peak daytime use occurs between 6-9 a.m. and 6-11 p.m. During those times, usage was between 55 and 65 percent. On weekends, the peak usage was about the same.

This means that even at peak times there were still around 200 empty spaces in the garage which sits almost directly above the East Liberty Busway station.

Click to enlarge

Screenshot of the report

Use of the Eastside Bond car park

According to figures from the Port Authority, this station has 4,200 combined departures and stops (total number of passengers getting on and off the bus at the station) per weekday. This actually exceeds the number of weekday activations and deactivations at the First Avenue Downtown light rail station. Including all bus stops within a four-minute walk of Shakespeare’s development, including the bus station, more than 6,700 people get on and off the bus.

Laura Wiens of the local Pittsburghers for Public Transit (PPT) organization wants developers to build less parking. She presents the study as proof of what her group advocates.

“In light of this, it becomes very clear that we are building too many parking lots,” says Wiens. “Especially right next to East Liberty Transit Station, the best transit area in town.”

Port Authority spokesperson Adam Brandolph said the authority was aware of the study because of its potential impacts on transit decisions and pressure from the authority to advocate for the TOD.

He says the Port Authority did not verify the numbers in the report to verify their accuracy, but the “finding supports our anecdotal evidence.”

According to the report, the East Liberty Target parking lot has 446 parking spaces used by public customers. Its peak usage occurs between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. and is between 49 and 52% on an average weekday. On weekends, peak usage jumped to 57-60 percent, and also occurred in the early afternoon. Even at its peak, there were well over 100 spaces available for parking.

Click to enlarge

Screenshot of the report

Use of the East Liberty Target parking lot

The Walnut on Highland garage, which is reserved for tenants of the two adjoining apartment buildings with a total of 194 units, contains 182 private spaces. Buildings are occupied at a rate of 97 percent, but only about 70 percent of parking spaces are used.

The report also examines on-street parking in the area near the East Liberty bus stop and notes that peak usage is around 77% on weekdays and 83% on weekends.

Wiens says future developments in the area should focus on housing density and try to limit the number of parking spaces built.

“It’s a great opportunity,” says Wiens. “We need more density. It will encourage more people to use [transit]. When you build more parking, you [give] incentive for more cars to come to the neighborhood.

Wiens also notes that there is a lot of money the developers are setting aside for parking spaces. A PPT article argues that Shakespeare’s developers could save $ 4.6 million if they reduced the number of parking spaces to align with the minimum zoning requirements at East Liberty, which is one parking space for two. housing units. (Shakespeare’s proposal is technically in Shadyside, where the minimums are higher, but the developers have convinced city officials to accept a gap to lower them earlier.)

CP Photo: Jared Murphy

The giant eagle of Shakespeare street

A UCLA 2014 study shows that surface parking garages required by parking minimums increase the average U.S. project cost by 31 percent.

Wiens says it makes financial sense and would be a boost to economic equity in the region if less parking was built at Shakespeare’s site, especially if the money saved was used to build more affordable units and / or provide residents with transit passes.

“When we talk about overbuilding hundreds of spaces, like in Eastside Bond and Target, it adds up to millions of dollars,” says Wiens. “There is so much wasted space. ”

She says this makes housing unaffordable for residents, which is only exacerbated by the fact that these units are close to frequent and good public transport, which is more frequently used by low-income people.

“This money should be used for free bus passes,” Wiens says. “If you have 30 people getting free bus passes, that reduces parking requests.”

Read the full report below.

Parking facilities

REEF Technology provides versatile hubs for car parks

by Deena S. Hawkins on June 27, 2019

MIAMI-REEF Technology has announced a plan to transform parking lots and garages across the United States into versatile hubs. These hubs, located in the car parks, will be populated by companies from the REEF hub ecosystem, including Uber, DoorDash, GetAround and Nuro, and will offer services such as bicycle and electric scooter rental companies, on-demand aviation and peer-to-peer car rental.

The objective is to “perpetuate” the parking structures while meeting the needs of the city, according to REEF Technology.

Another offering in the hubs will be REEF KITCHENS, which has launched operations in London and Miami in response to growing demand for food delivery. REEF KITCHENS partners with local restaurants to provide faster delivery, with each kitchen center accommodating one to five restaurant brands. Restaurants can manage their operations directly or through REEF contract staff. Several hundred additional operational kitchens are expected to open in North America and the UK.

The company is also in talks with micro distribution centers.

REEF technology, formerly known as ParkJockey Global, is currently the largest parking network in North America with more than 4,500 locations. Backed by SoftBank Vision Fund and Mubadala Investment Co., the company has a network of smart parking real estate.

Parking spaces

Too many parking spaces in the city center, still thousands more to add

by Deena S. Hawkins on June 27, 2019

Downtown Memphis is for drivers only, at least for now.

That’s according to the findings of a one-year parking study commissioned by the Downtown Memphis Commission, said Iain Banks of Nelson Nygaard, the California company that conducted the study.

“There is definitely an automotive culture in downtown Memphis,” Banks said in a 90-minute presentation to the DMC board of directors on Thursday morning. “And that’s partly due, obviously, to historical preferences, but also to the fact that the transit system and global mobility is probably not quite where the city would really like it to be right now. “

The study looked at parking between AW Willis Avenue and EH Crump Boulevard and from the riverside at Interstate 69 on the outskirts of the Medical District.

About 83% of downtown workers who responded to a parking survey said they walk to work alone every day, while only 7% said they carpooled. Among downtown residents, the number was only slightly lower. About 69% reported driving alone in the city center.

For these drivers, parking can often seem scarce and expensive, according to the study. But that’s just the perception, Banks said.

In fact, drivers said they can usually find a location after searching for about five minutes and said that location is usually within two blocks of their destination.

Choose 901 employee Taylor Lewis grabs a parking receipt on the way to work in May 2014.

20,000 additional places

There are 71,364 parking spaces in downtown Memphis and the Medical District, according to the Banks study.

Despite perceptions of low parking inventory, banks have found that approximately 50,000 of these spaces are needed to meet parking demand. And even if Memphis’s development continued to grow along with cities like Nashville and Austin, 20 years from now, Memphis would still be able to meet demand with about 5,000 spaces less than there are today.

In the heart of downtown, the excess of available parking spaces over parking demand is most apparent. There are 17,065 parking spaces available downtown, but the immediate growth that is happening downtown only calls for about 8,600 spaces, according to the study.

Despite the excess parking, the members of the board of directors of DMC were reluctant to accept the disappearance of the spaces.

“How do you know how many people are coming downtown for business meetings, how many people are coming downtown to meet someone for lunch, and then have to go back east because that’s where do they live or work? Asked Julie Ellis, DMC board member.

There are 17,065 parking spaces available downtown, but the immediate growth happening downtown only calls for about 8,600 spaces, according to a study.

She said it made sense to try to reduce the need for parking for downtown residents who also work there by making the city more pedestrian-friendly and improving public transportation. But she said reducing parking too much could alienate East Memphis residents.

“What I never want to hear is that being downtown is exclusive to anyone who doesn’t live or work downtown,” Ellis said. “It’s not Memphis. That worries me in a larger context.”

Banks, however, said the change could take years – but even if just 10% of inner-city residents decided to use their cars less frequently, that would mean less space would be needed and more. much of what is available could be used by the people of East Memphis and others. travel to the city center.

Less surfaces, more technology

DMC’s sister councils have already committed to adding thousands of additional parking spaces despite the density of the downtown area.

Part of Union Row’s approved $ 950 million development incentive program that plans to bring apartments, a hotel, offices and more retail – including a grocery store – downtown was a $ 50 million loan to build two parking garages that would add approximately 2,000 spaces.

City officials are in talks to add more parking garages downtown.

Banks said adding more garages isn’t necessarily a bad thing if it means closing surface lots and using prime downtown real estate for more development.

“Maybe a garage makes sense in some places where it opens up three to four to five development blocks and it can serve as a shared parking use for those developments,” he said.

DMC President Jennifer Oswalt said the parking study is already being used to help her organization determine how to allocate limited parking funds to other developments.

“What this has done for us is to show that immediate growth is not a crisis,” Oswalt said. “It has shown that we are not completely immune to challenges, but neither are we in crisis… We can try to change small behaviors.”

These efforts to change behavior are manifested in another type of incentive approved in late 2018 to encourage alternative commuting for the 700 new employees that agricultural technology company Indigo Ag plans to hire over the next three years.

The DMC is also committed to providing parking solutions for AutoZone, which recently announced a Expansion of the city center this will lead to 130 new jobs. No details have been released on what the DMC will offer and how it will impact the existing parking landscape.

An expansion of AutoZone is expected to create 130 well-paying jobs in downtown Memphis.

Preliminary results published with the study suggest that the technology could be a solution to negative perceptions of parking. Banks said using apps or other technology to help downtown visitors determine the location and cost of parking before leaving their homes could be helpful.

He also suggested that improving public transportation, better maintenance of parking garages, working with businesses to make more private parking accessible to the public, and making the city center more pedestrian-friendly could all help. change the habits of those who visit the city center and reduce the need for parking.

A final list of recommendations and a guide to help the DMC make parking development decisions will be released in the coming weeks, Banks said.

Desiree Stennett covers economic development and business at The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at [email protected], 901-529-2738 or on Twitter: @desi_stennett.

Parking facilities

REEF Technology unveils plan to transform car parks into versatile hubs for the on-demand economy

by Deena S. Hawkins on June 25, 2019

MIAMI – (COMMERCIAL THREAD) –REEF technology, the ecosystem that connects the world to your neighborhood, today announced its plan to transform parking lots and lots across the United States into thriving hubs for the on-demand economy. REEF Technology, formerly known as ParkJockey Global, is now the largest parking network in North America with more than 4,500 locations. Supported by SoftBank Vision Fund and Mubadala Investment Company (MIC), REEF will create technology hubs that will connect businesses, cities and those who live there, while enabling the efficient and frictionless movement of goods and services on demand.

With the rise of the sharing and on-demand economy, REEF sees the potential for future-proof parking structures while meeting the challenges of our cities: extreme congestion and resulting pollution, high costs for parking. business expansion and residents’ growing need for rapid delivery of goods and services. The REEF hubs will house a set of businesses and services specific to the needs of the neighborhoods, all of which provide solutions to the challenges that accumulate in our largest cities and take advantage of REEF’s proximity to the community.

“At REEF, we believe that a parking lot should be more than a place to store your car. On the contrary, it can be a hub for the community, connecting people with businesses and services that keep us all going, ”said Ari Ojalvo, co-founder and CEO of REEF Technology. “REEF will completely transform what people, cities and businesses can expect from parking lots, in the same way that the introduction of smartphone apps has completely changed the way we think about mobile phones. Accelerated urbanization has created a huge problem that needs to be addressed urgently, and hubs will bring immense opportunities for growth, experimentation and versatility to improve our communities.

“REEF transforms urban parking infrastructure into modern and technological logistics centers and thereby rejuvenates local economic dynamism,” said Michael Ronen, Managing Partner of the SoftBank Vision Fund. “The company creates opportunities to work with last mile delivery companies, such as Uber, DoorDash, GetAround, Nuro and others to align interests and create win-win situations for all parties involved.”

With the huge growth in on-demand food delivery, the company has created last-block and delivery-only REEF KITCHENS as a key component of hubs. Restaurants are partnering with REEF KITCHENS to quickly open and grow their businesses while providing more dining options and faster delivery at lower cost to customers. State-of-the-art kitchens are housed in exclusive containers, each accommodating one to five restaurant brands or concepts. Restaurants can manage their operations directly or contract with REEF to hire staff and prepare menu items only for delivery. REEF KITCHENS has launched successful operations in Miami and London with plans to open several hundred operational kitchens in major markets in North America and the UK

“The food delivery industry is experiencing explosive growth and opportunities,” said Aziz Ihsanoglu, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of REEF Technology. “Based on the success of our REEF KITCHENS in the UK and Miami, we are confident that restaurants and consumers will appreciate the opportunities created by our business. ”

In addition to kitchens, the REEF hub ecosystem includes several companies, with more than a dozen REEF partner companies at launch, bringing urban mobility hubs into city life. These businesses include electric bicycle and scooter rental companies, on-demand aviation companies, and peer-to-peer car rentals. In addition, the company is in advanced talks with micro-distribution centers and is creating ride-sharing buffer zones that reduce congestion, where drivers can also access services such as car service and maintenance within the city. hub.

“Through REEF’s smart parking real estate connected network, we are now offering proximity as a service to our partners – enabling them to reach customers in new ways and free up revenue streams for owners. Our technology platform can quickly adapt real estate to new uses by providing personalized interactions in real time for each person, vehicle and space, ”said co-founder of REEF Technology and senior vice president of product Philippe Saint -Just.

Ojalvo has assembled a team of global industry leaders to shape and oversee REEF, including former executives from Twitter, UberEats, Starbucks, Darden, Brinker, IBM and Westfield.

To learn more about REEF, visit: www.REEFtechnology.com

About REEF technology

REEF Technology is the ecosystem that connects the world to your block. Formerly known as ParkJockey Global, its goal is to transform parking lots and parking lots across the United States into thriving community centers. Supported by SoftBank Vision Fund and MIC, REEF will connect businesses, cities and those who live there, while enabling the efficient and frictionless movement of goods and services on demand.

Parking spaces

Millions of parking spaces could be left empty in the transportation revolution

by Deena S. Hawkins on May 31, 2019

If the future of personal transportation lies with scooters and self-driving cars which are more often than not on the move, this will leave many empty parking spaces open for new uses, such as redevelopment, food delivery centers or shopping centers. vehicle recharging.

Why is this important: The disruption of urban transport creates opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs who see the value of reallocating modest parking space in the digital age.

A number of companies are already reinventing the way parking space could be used …

1. ParkJockey: The Florida-based company’s ambition is to sell access to space to businesses such as ridesharing, car rentals, and food delivery.

To do this, it wants to sell an “operating system” (hardware and software) to garage owners who will turn their real estate into a service that customers can access by paying.
At the end of last year, ParkJockey acquired 2 large parking operators as part of a financing round led by SoftBank.

2. City storage systems: Better known as the new venture of former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, the company is also dealing with parking lot reallocation.

It is bought properties, including parking garages, that it will turn into commercial kitchens for delivery-only restaurants and other consumer services.

3. SpotHero: The company is focusing on a parking space reservation app (for human drivers), but it’s already thinking about the arrival of robot drivers.

He’s worked with many partners to upgrade some of their technologies to handle autonomous vehicles, which CEO Mark Lawrence says can have immediate benefits for human drivers as well..
“Every location we do [AV]“Ready today is a better experience for our consumers now,” says Lawrence. “We’ve done studies that show people are willing to pay more for one automated experience than another. “

During this time, some real estate developers are also considering a future without as much parking space.

AvalonBay Communities, which is working on a future residential complex in Los Angeles, has designed a large parking lot that they plan to convert for recreational use as a gym and theater, and even retail and dining spaces.
The owner of The Grove and other high-end malls is working with Google to potentially convert to more restaurants and stores, according to the LA Times.

Yes, but: Developers already have some tough decisions to make when it comes to their investments, which typically have a 30-year horizon as they juggle short and long term uses.

Construction costs for surface parking structures can cost $ 21,000 per space, and an additional $ 500 per year to maintain each space. During this time, Parking Fee an average of $ 2 an hour in the US, but can reach $ 33 for 2 hours of parking in New York.
And converting garages is expensive: in Pittsburgh, it costs $ 17 million to convert a 3-storey garage into more than 60 apartment units.

The bottom line: These companies may have to make big investments years before they know if they made the right bet.

Go further:

Parking spaces

Houston is growing, but its parking spots may not be – Houston Public Media

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 11, 2018

Parking meters in downtown Houston on September 20, 2018.

According to one estimate, Greater Houston will exceed 10 million people by 2040. That would mean about three million more people would be added to the region. But so many additional cars may not require additional parking spaces.

“The buildings are not built for today. If you do your job right, you are trying to ask yourself: how is this going to be a good investment over 25 to 50 years? »Declared David Mincberg, general manager, officer of Flagship Properties Company, a company that invests in commercial real estate. He is also president of Houston first, which operates the City of Houston’s underground parking lot, including the George R. Brown Convention Center and Jones Hall.

Mincberg said parking needs are changing because the way people move is changing.

“As rail grows in Houston, Texas, you have more people, and more people, and more people using Uber and Lyft, and maybe autonomous vehicles in the near future; the near future being a decade. A decade for a building is not very long, ”said Mincberg. “And what is the ideal point between” what should an investor-developer do “and” a municipality should she demand? ” “”

Click here for more in-depth features.

How the city is responding to changing developments

City officials are already considering how to deal with Houston’s growing population.

“We have to find ways to get cars off the streets,” said Houston Pro-Tem Mayor Ellen Cohen. She is also a member of the District C council, which includes updated parking systems for busy areas like Washington Avenue and Montrose. “We have to be able to get people to Houston by bus, light rail, integrated transit. And how can we do that so that people aren’t driving cars with one person behind the wheel?”

Mayor Pro-Tem Ellen Cohen in her office on September 20, 2018.

Cohen said parking regulations have changed and the city has tested less in the city center.

“Instead of having regulations requiring restaurants, for example, to have an ‘X’ number of places available, we are testing the idea – which is currently underway downtown – but in the city center where you don’t need to have “X” number of parking spaces. You come to the restaurant, you can park in the adjacent streets. That sort of thing. So that it just leaves more space for people park where they can. “

“A third of its residents in this new apartment did not have a car at all”

Market needs have led downtown Houston to be exempt from parking restrictions for years, said Andy Icken, city of Houston development manager. He said the changes in development have also resulted in changes in the parking needs in the city center.

“Someone built a new multi-family project in the city center, which has a lot of people renting out apartments. And they instituted a one-car-to-apartment unit process, and they actually agreed. to buy it back to the individual, “said Icken.” So what this owner told me was: he discovered that about a third of his residents in this new apartment did not have a car at all. others who have it would make good economic sense. “

Andy Icken, Director of Development for the City of Houston, reviews the documents in his office on October 1, 2018.

Not having a car can be a growing trend in Houston. Icken said many places in the city have evolved into mixed-use development, such as the Galleria district.

“If we look at the total square footage of the Galleria area, which is over 35 million square feet, one-third is commercial office, one-third is residential and one-third is actually retail space,” said Icken. . “It requires fewer cars if people are to go to this area.”

Icken added that they have more projects coming up in the city looking to have mixed use because it’s convenient for people. He said they are considering more rules and regulations to help improve pedestrian communities, like Rice Village. Another factor to consider, Icken said, is the technology.

“Autonomous vehicles are going to play a role, longer term,” said Icken.

the Harris County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (METRO) has already set up a prototype plan for its first autonomous vehicle, in University of South Texas. And Icken said the city supports this plan and is thinking of others.

This is a shuttle currently in use in the Las Vegas Innovation District. METRO says it is potentially considering a similar project for the Texas Southern University campus.

“We actually believe that the rapid bus line in the middle of the Galleria can be converted into a self-driving vehicle. We are planning experimental work on an autonomous vehicle going from the convention center to airports. The technology needs to be improved, but it evolves every day and I think it’s up to us to see how we’re going to adapt to it.

In the years to come, that could mean big changes in a city where, right now, so many people are driving themselves.

To subscribe to Today in Houston

Fill out the form below to subscribe to our new daily HPM Newsroom editorial newsletter.

Parking spaces

In some US cities, there are more than ten times as many parking spaces as households

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 18, 2018

If you’ve ever attended a city council meeting, you know people love to complain about the lack of parking. People want to be able to park their cars as close to the front door of the place they are trying to visit as possible. Such complaints create an artificial impression that parking is scarce.

But according to a new report by the Research Institute for Housing America, a branch of the Mortgage Bankers Association, cities actually have a parking glut. They are also very bad at estimating their real parking space needs. Worse still, all the land dedicated to cars contributes to skyrocketing home values, which excludes low-income renters and buyers from the market.

The study, “Quantified Parking: Comprehensive Parking Inventories for Five US Cities,” counted parking spaces in five cities: New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Iowa’s capital, Des Moines, and Jackson, Wyoming. The Earl is the first of its kind; according to the report, “comprehensive parking inventories have never existed for U.S. cities.”

The study found that parking in the United States represents billions of dollars of public and private investment. In New York alone, parking is worth $20.6 billion and is controlled by a handful of companies.

The city of Jackson, Wyoming (population 10,000) has a 27:1 ratio of parking spaces to households, according to the report, and yet a decade ago it spent $17 million on a parking structure. parking lot that offers exclusively free parking.

“When a preconception of too few parking spaces infects policy makers, more parking spaces tend to be built and provided for free to everyone,” wrote Eric Scharnhorst, senior data scientist at the startup. Parking and the author of the study.

Read more: Parking lots are an incredible waste of space. Here’s how to end it

American drivers spend on average 17 hours per year looking for the perfect parking spot, and most cars in the US are parked 95% of the time.

But scooping up valuable land for car storage has the effect of driving up the cost of land for housing, according to experts in the world: it is more lucrative to operate a car park than a home. This is ideal for property owners looking to make a return on their investments, but it makes real estate markets inhospitable to new buyers and tenants.

As the report notes (and as real estate websites confirm), the median selling price of a home in Jackson hovers around $1 million. According to a local real estate company, 2017 marked the city’s lowest real estate inventory in 30 years.

This dynamic was evident in most of the cities studied in the report. Seattle has more than twice as many parking spaces as it really needs, while Philly has nearly four parking spaces for every house. Des Moines has 83,141 homes, 217,000 people and 1.6 million parking spaces, or 19 spaces per household.

Of all the cities featured in the report, only New York, the most densely populated city in the United States, had a reasonable ratio of parking spaces per household. “There are an average of 16.2 households per acre and 10.1 parking spaces per acre in New York City,” Scharnhorst wrote.

In crowded cities where rents are rising, cities will increasingly be faced with a dilemma: parking or housing? Just this week in Silicon Valley, the city of Palo Alto – which, as the headquarters of Google, Tesla and many other technology companies, has one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the world – voted to allow people living in motorhomes to park on city property. During this time, a bill in San Francisco that would allow its transit operator to build housing over station properties is currently before the California legislature. (Don’t get too excited. California also recently shot down a bill this would have allowed for more residential construction near public transportation.)

However, these are only palliative measures. As the report suggests, cities should conduct regular parking audits to diagnose current car storage supplies and prescribe a more sensible solution to a looming housing crisis.

What a lot of cities really need is to become more affordable, and that’s done in part by maximizing the zoning of land for housing, as well as promoting public transit.

Solve Motherboard’s weekly internet-themed crossword: Solve Internet.

Parking spaces

Des Moines has 83,000 households and 1.6 million parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 13, 2018

Des Moines has seven times more parking spaces than people, according to a new study from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

The Research Institute for Housing America arm of the association reviewed parking inventories in Des Moines, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and Jackson, Wyoming. He found a “large amount of parking”.

Des Moines has 1.6 million parking spaces, according to the study. This represents around seven parking spaces for each of the city’s 217,521 residents in 2017.

The report argues that cities have made “monumental investments in parking”. And he says the results come at a time when people are driving less and parking demand is declining.

Cars drive past a parking lot on Third Avenue in downtown Des Moines on Friday, July 13, 2018. According to a recent study, Des Moines has a large number of parking spaces.

In Des Moines, city leaders recognize that driving and parking behaviors are changing. In response, the city has exempted many projects from its minimum parking requirements on new developments. And a new change in the city’s zoning code further relaxes parking rules.

Following:

“My conclusion is quite basic: the investment in parking really exceeds the current parking demand, which is really interesting,” said Eric Scharnhorst, author of the report. “Because future demand will likely continue to decline. “

The study valued the parking infrastructure in Des Moines at $ 6.42 billion. He counted the total number of spaces in surface lots, residential driveways, on-street parking and private parking garages within the city limits of Des Moines.

Scharnhorst, start-up manager Parkingmill, says an oversupply of parking spaces means city leaders have the opportunity to rethink the uses of many dedicated parking lots, which are often found in desirable areas of the city.

“It’s just a really big opportunity in Des Moines. The occupancy rates are pretty low. But the inventory is really high,” he said. “Often the parking spaces are in very convenient places because you want to get to where you want to go. “

“We must take a step back as a city”

Scharnhorst’s study used a mix of high-resolution satellite images as well as data from property tax assessors, city departments and large institutions.

The study found that 83 percent of Des Moines parking spaces are in off-street parking lots and driveways; 10 percent are on the streets; and 7 percent are housed in structured off-street parking.

Of the five cities examined, Des Moines had one of the highest household-to-parking space ratios, with 19.4 spaces for each household in the city. Jackson had the largest with 27.1 places for each household and New York had the lowest ratio with 0.6 places for each household.

Philadelphia was houses 2.1 million parking spaces – 500,000 more than the 1.6 million stalls in Des Moines. With around 1.5 million residents, the city of Philadelphia is nearly seven times the size of Des Moines.

Larry James Jr., a real estate attorney in Des Moines who works with developers, said the numbers indicate a need to rethink the city’s approach to parking.

“We need to take a step back as a city,” said James.

He knows people are still complaining about parking, having trouble finding a spot on Court Avenue, or having to park three blocks from their East Village destination.

But it’s all relative: “The reality is that when you go to Jordan Creek Mall, you don’t think about walking three or four blocks when you go to the movies because you can see the front door,” he said. he declared.

James advocates letting the local market determine how much parking is required, rather than establishing “arbitrary” bylaws that impose minimum spaces in new developments.

He wants Des Moines to join the ranks of cities that waive parking requirements absolutely.

This is what the City has done in the city center where no minimum parking requirement applies. Yet, new projects are always offered with parking structures due to market demand, he said.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t need parking. We need it,” he said. “But let businesses figure out what they need.”

“The market will always dictate that there is parking”

Des Moines is working on building an urban infrastructure that is more cyclable and more pedestrianized. But cars are still king in the capital of Iowa.

“Hopefully there will be less demand and need to drive or park,” said Michael Ludwig, planning administrator for Des Moines. “But these are big ticket items. There is a lot of sidewalk space. There are a lot of streets that don’t have bike lanes. And in the meantime, people will still have to drive.”

But the city has already taken a new approach to parking.

Ludwig said developments are routinely exempt from minimum parking standards. This includes the new Soll apartment complex on Ingersoll Street.

And a new suite of zoning code changes propose to permanently reduce parking regulations.

Current code requires most new multi-family developments to include 1.5 parking spaces for each residential unit. The proposed new zoning code would reduce the requirements to one space per unit, Ludwig said.

Too much parking has real implications: it can drive up development costs (and therefore rental prices). And that can affect the stormwater drainage rate, Ludwig said.

“We think our current standards are too high, so we are proposing adjustments,” he said. “Whether or not there is political support from the community so that there is no minimum everywhere, I don’t know. “

That’s because many small businesses along commercial corridors are surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods, creating real parking and traffic problems, Ludwig said.

Whatever the city does, Ludwig doesn’t expect developers to abandon parking lots and garages anytime soon. Many grocery stores and big box retailers are already above the city minimum, he said.

“Just because you don’t have a minimum parking ratio doesn’t mean there won’t be parking,” he said. “The market is always going to dictate that there are parking lots. And they are always going to build parking lots.”

Parking spaces

New York City Reserves Nearly 300 Parking Spaces for Car-Sharing Services

by Deena S. Hawkins on May 31, 2018

As if finding a parking space in New York wasn’t difficult enough, the city is taking 285 spaces away and reserving them for car-sharing services like Zipcar. The move is already infuriating New Yorkers, reports The New York Times.

This will be the first time that car-sharing services will be reserved parking spaces in the streets of the city, according to the newspaper. Currently, some companies keep cars in parking garages, but others allow users to leave cars parked on the street in designated areas. City officials say Reserving on-street parking for carpooling will encourage more people to use the services, reducing reliance on private cars and reducing traffic and greenhouse gas emissions.

But New York City already has relatively low car ownership rates. Just under half of adults own a car, according to the New York City Economic Development Corporation. This is well below the national average of 92%, note The New York Times. City officials say greater car-sharing availability is still needed to serve neighborhoods with limited transit infrastructure.

The 285 parking spaces are located primarily in low- and modest-income neighborhoods, according to The New York Times. The neighborhoods were chosen because they are currently poorly served by car-sharing services and have relatively few car parks. Of the designated car-sharing spaces, approximately 230 will be on streets and 55 on municipal land. Signs designating spaces reserved for Zipcar and Enterprise CarShare have already been put up and companies have been allowed to tow private vehicles.

Use of car-sharing services is on the rise, with about 1.4 million U.S. users in 2017, according to The New York Times. But in New York, parking spaces are as valuable as any other type of real estate. The city has already removed spaces in many neighborhoods for bike lanes and docks for the CitiBike bike-sharing program. But he didn’t give up on strict enforcement of parking rules, and there wasn’t exactly a surplus of street parking to begin with. Some drivers would also resent the city giving away public land for the exclusive use of private companies.

It’s unclear whether more carpooling will reduce traffic, but that may depend on how the services are used. A 2010 study of round-trip use found that one shared car could eliminate nine to 13 private cars. But Susan Shaheen, an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center, said The New York Times that his research has shown that one-way car sharing does not significantly reduce traffic.

In New York, Zipcar and General Motors’ Maven service require users to return cars to designated parking lots or garages after a trip. Daimler’s Car2Go only requires users to leave cars in a designated “welcome area”, not a specific location. It was also BMW’s ReachNow policy, but the service withdraws from New York starting June 5.

New York has an extensive public transportation system, but that system, especially the subway, is widely criticized due to lack of maintenance and unreliable service. It remains to be seen whether the removal of parking spaces and the neglect of public transportation will really convince New Yorkers to take up carpooling.

Parking spaces

App-Based Startup Connects Seattle-area Commuters to Unused Parking Spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on May 29, 2018

GarageHop is one of many companies trying to make better use of empty parking spaces in residential buildings. Up to 40% of parking spaces in multi-family apartment buildings in King County could be unused, according to a 2015 study.

When Helene Costa moved to Seattle with her husband in 2013, she noticed something about their new apartment building near Seattle Center.

Most of the parking spaces were empty. She didn’t think much about it. She had never owned a car in Paris.

But it stuck in her head for two years until she stumbled upon a statistic of one. old IBM study: About 30 percent of city traffic emissions come from cars used for parking.

Traffic Lab is a Seattle Times project that explores the region’s thorny transportation issues, highlights promising approaches to reducing congestion, and helps readers find the best ways to get around. It is funded with help from community sponsors Alaska Airlines, CenturyLink, Kemper Development Co., NHL Seattle, PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company, and Seattle Children’s Hospital. Seattle Times editors and reporters operate at arm’s length from our funders and maintain editorial control over content in Traffic Lab.

Learn more about Traffic Lab »| Follow us on twitter “

“I connected the dots,” said Costa. “I’m sure we could do better.

The following year, she co-founded GarageHop, a Seattle-based startup that connects commuters looking for parking with residential buildings that have space to spare.

GarageHop contracts with apartment buildings to rent excess parking spaces. Drivers then register online, pay a monthly fee, and unlock the garage with a smartphone app. GarageHop and the building owner both get a cut in revenue, though Costa declined to specify the breakdown.

Up to 40 percent of parking spaces in King County multi-family buildings could be unused, according to a 2015 study by the King County subway.

“We help property owners significantly increase their income from real estate by using an asset they are not using,” said Costa. “On the other hand, we’re helping Seattle people reduce the frustrating time they spend in their cars looking for a parking space.

Seattle’s recently passed parking regulation amendment – intended to make it easier to build homes without parking while making better use of existing parking – allows services like GarageHop to work in more parts of the city.

Previously, building owners could rent their excess parking spaces to non-residents, but only in downtown and other commercial areas. The new law allows building owners in most neighborhoods with multi-family dwellings to also rent their excess parking spaces.

GarageHop currently rents space in four residential buildings in Seattle and one in Kirkland, right next to South Kirkland Park-and-Ride. At $ 80 per month, renting a GarageHop space costs a lot more than free parking, but it does offer a guaranteed space. The 800 spaces and more in the relay park almost always fill up. It was 97 percent full in 2017.

GarageHop is not the only company to offer such services.

WhereiPark rents monthly locations at 21 locations in Seattle and seven in the Eastside.

And Diamond Parking partnered with King County Metro last year to rent parking spaces in parking lots and garages near busy transit lines. This program, with 15 different parking sites across the region, was started with a federal grant of $ 543,000.

Seattle and neighboring cities have long-standing policies to reduce the number of people driving alone to get to work. Increasing the availability of monthly parking is not the way to achieve this. Research shows that one of the most effective ways to discourage daily car trips is to charge for parking by the day rather than by the month.

Costa, who previously worked on climate change issues for the French Ministry of Sustainable Development, said they were working hard to provide parking near transit hubs and park-and-ride lots, like the Kirkland site.

“We don’t need more parking, on the contrary we need less, but we need our parking lot to be smart,” she said. “We will need them clustered in strategic locations.”

Parking spaces

Parking spaces will no longer be reserved for cars

by Deena S. Hawkins on March 29, 2018

To find one of the best places to relax in Berlin, take the elevator from the Neukölln Arcaden shopping center to the parking lot on the fifth floor. Then all you need to do is quickly climb the ramp to the top floor of the garage to reach your destination: a hybrid urban nightclub / garden where stylish young folks sip Club Mate, munch on a rotating menu of street food, and dance the night away. sun over the city.

Camping in reclaimed parking lots isn’t just for German hipsters and thirsty backpackers. With the growing popularity of carsharing services and the heralded arrival of autonomous vehicles, cities around the world are reinventing their parking lots that will soon be irrelevant. After a century of urban planning favoring the comfort of the car, neighborhoods of cities that were once auto-forward have been redesigned for the happiness of the inhabitants.

Last month, San Francisco proposed a plan to redevelop the 732-space garage at its Moscone Convention Center into affordable housing and hotel rooms. In 2015, Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Converted its 11,000 square foot parking lot at its northern campus into a student startup incubator aptly named “The Garage”. Then there’s Square Roots, an urban agriculture accelerator co-founded by Kimbal Musk (yes, Elon’s brother) that has set up ten shipping container gardens in a Brooklyn parking lot and now produces up to 500 pounds of produce. fee per week.

Innovative ideas like these hold the promise of respite for our increasingly spatial cities. Cars are meant to be driven, but on average they spend 95% of their days at rest. In response, big box parking lots, multi-level garages, and on-street parking have become hallmarks of North American cities, robbing our urban centers of valuable development space. An estimated 13% of Los Angeles is reserved for parking, while Houston has 30 parking spaces per capita.

As people continue to flow into urban centers and rental prices skyrocket in many cities, real estate developers, city planners and policymakers are increasingly turning to autonomous vehicles as a source of relief. from space. Shared and autonomous vehicles rarely need to park during the day – once you’re done shopping for the weekend, your elderly neighbor is ready to be transported to her eye appointment. And when demand for these cars declines in the wee hours of the morning, they can head to nearby suburbs where space is more plentiful and affordable. In a 2015 report, the OECD estimated that a shared autonomous fleet could remove 90 percent of cars of our city centers. With numbers like that, we could finally clear heaven and demolish the parking lot.

Driverless cars will hit the streets of California in the form of shared taxis from April 2018 thanks to the regulations voted last month. But despite the bold predictions of many, like think tank RethinkX, which predicts 95 percent of our driving will be in self-driving cars by 2030 – it will likely be a gradual process until the technology is sufficiently adopted to reach market saturation. The recent deadly pedestrians caused by an autonomous vehicle has put the brakes on Elon Musk’s claim that any delay in adopting the technology means that we are effectively “killing people”, and we do not yet have clear data on their security. In addition, there is the labyrinthine web of policies to consider. City bylaws and building codes take time to adapt to new technology, and even a pedestrian-friendly city like Vancouver has rules in place that require at least two parking spaces for each townhouse (plus a parking for visitors). Even if we all embrace autonomous transit options tomorrow, it could take a decade to see a significant percentage of our parking lots destroyed.

Given these hurdles, forward-thinking designers and architects choose to build transitional spaces, facilities that can accommodate cars today, and then easily reconfigured as parking demand declines. Design firm Gensler is renowned for its convertible retail spaces like the new 84.51 ° Center in downtown Cincinnati, whose three parking levels are designed to easily convert into offices as needed. And in Los Angeles, AvalonBay Communities Inc. has planned a 475-unit apartment complex and a shopping mall whose ground floor can be remodeled to accommodate a constant flow of self-driving cars doing pickup and drop-off. The complex’s two levels of underground parking will also be built with higher than normal ceilings and non-sloped floors, which will allow them to be converted into recreational facilities like a gym or theater. “The opportunity is not only to create new places that welcome autonomous cars”, writing Gensler, “but to reshape our existing towns and cities into the kind of vibrant, feature-rich places we all appreciate.”

Whether in 2022 or 2052, when self-driving cars take over, they will not only disrupt the urban planning codes of our cities, they will radically change our lifestyles. The Boston Consulting Group believes that autonomous and shared vehicles will give Americans a 30 billion hours of overtime per year. Instead of wasting time driving, sitting in traffic, or looking for parking spaces, we could use our free commute time to work, spend time with our families, or just enjoy our urban surroundings.

It might sound like a utopian vision, but according to Antonio Loro, a Vancouver-based planner and consultant who works with city agencies to plan for autonomous vehicles, it could easily turn into a dystopia if we simply replicate our existing driving culture. Loro stresses that we need to be very clear about the forms of shared autonomous vehicles in which we invest and design. “Some people think of taxis that primarily serve individual passengers, while others think of shared taxis that move a handful of passengers at a time,” says Loro. “Fewer people think of some kind of shared vehicle that moves a lot of passengers simultaneously. I like to call it a “bus”.

The prospect of self-driving vehicles is alluring, but if our goal is to create vibrant cities, we can’t assume that giving the wealthy their own private AI drivers will spur a massive, human-centric overhaul of our urban infrastructure – and maybe we don’t. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel in the meantime. “There are already alternatives to owning a private car, such as using public transport, walking, cycling,” notes Loro. “The more people opt for more shared vehicles, the more the city will actually see the benefits that excite people, like smoother traffic and less space swallowed up by roads and parking… We don’t have to wait for robot taxis or shared taxis to prioritize urban space.

Parking spaces

Ann Arbor faces potential loss of hundreds of public parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 14, 2017

ANN ARBOR, MI — While plans are underway to add 375 more public parking spaces to downtown Ann Arbor by winter 2019, hundreds more could disappear.

The Downtown Development Authority’s leases for two parking lots in First/Huron and Fifth/Huron end Nov. 30, meaning a loss of 222 spaces from the public parking system starting Dec. 1.

There is still a chance that they may function as short-term private car parks. The city is in discussions with the owner about this, but it is expected that they will eventually be redeveloped.

Additionally, there is talk of closing two city-owned public parking lots at 415 W. Washington and First/William as the city moves forward with its new Treeline urban pathways plan. These lots have long been envisioned as anchor parks along the future trail, although there may also be private development.

The transformation of these two lots could remove an additional 261 spaces from the public parking system, although when this might happen is uncertain at this time. The city is in the process of finalizing the Treeline plan and the implementation phase is next.

City Council and the Downtown Development Authority held a joint meeting Monday evening, Nov. 13, to discuss parking issues, including the planned loss of those 483 public parking spaces.

City leaders are in talks with the owner of the two lots along Huron, Ann Arbor-based developer First Martin Corp., and are considering allowing the company to temporarily operate them as a private parking lot open to the public until the properties are redeveloped. But there are zoning compliance considerations still under consideration.

The DDA has leased the First/Huron and Fifth/Huron lots from First Martin for years, using them as public parking.

DDA executive director Susan Pollay said First Martin was not offering the option of renewing leases now. She said she understood First Martin wanted to redevelop the properties, although she did not know of any specific development plans.

“Not renewing leases is a way to make redevelopment of these lots more possible,” Pollay said, praising First Martin as a developer. “They’re good developers and good community members. So if that’s what it takes to get them redeveloped, that’s a win for everyone.”

Company representatives could not be reached for comment for this story.

The Fifth and Huron lot across from City Hall has been marketed as available real estate for years while being used as a parking lot.

The lot at First and Huron runs the full length of the block from Huron to Washington and from First to Ashley. It is known as Brown Block and is a popular parking spot for downtown visitors, including patrons of Downtown Home and Garden and Main Street restaurants and shops. The lot is often full at peak times.

Pollay said the loss of the Brown Block as a public parking lot from December 1, which is Midnight Madness, the start of the downtown holiday shopping season, would be a bad time, but there are discussions between the city and First Martin on the possibility of allowing the company to operate the lot as a private parking lot at this time. Pollay noted that the use of the Brown Block as a parking lot predates zoning.

City Administrator Howard Lazarus confirmed the city is talking to First Martin about zoning compliance issues.

“And we hope to work together with them,” he said. ‘We do not intend to close these grounds while they work towards full compliance, as the availability of parking – while not a public good – serves a public benefit.

Lazarus said he believes a solution can be found administratively, but he is asking the city attorney to review the case to determine if action by city council is necessary.

“As long as there are good faith efforts to keep moving forward, it is in the public interest to keep these spaces available,” he said.

Councilman Chuck Warpehoski, D-5th Ward, expressed some concern over First Martin’s permission to operate a private parking lot downtown, noting that the city would not allow developer Dennis Dahlmann to do so on the lot Y, even in the short term.

“I think there’s a reason why our D1 zoning doesn’t list parking as an approved primary use,” he said. “So I think if it’s a transition while other things are going on, I guess I can deal with it. The board and the DDA have taken a pretty strong stance on that when we looked at Lot Y. I think we should be consistent regardless of ownership I don’t think we should be playing favorites with that.

Warpehoski said not having private parking in competition with the city’s public parking lot is another consideration.

“And I think we should be consistent with our zoning to make sure we don’t let a primary use that we don’t want take up a lot of our streetscape,” he added.

The DDA said total parking revenue from the two First Martin lots in the prior fiscal year was $536,303, net of rent and taxes. Since the DDA shares 20% with the city, the loss of these lots equates to a loss of $107,260 per year for the city at current rates.

Additionally, the two city-owned lots at 415 W. Washington and First/William generated $367,625. The loss of these would equate to a reduction of $73,525 in city revenue per year at current rates.

Assuming current parking rates, the 375 new spaces expected to be added to the Ann/Ashley Garage could generate nearly $1 million per year in new revenue, including nearly $200,000 per year in new revenue for the city. , according to the DDA. It is estimated that it will cost approximately $18 million to add the three floors.

Council member Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Arrondissement, said she was concerned the public parking system could lose a network of more than 100 spaces given the level of parking demand.

She also noted that the city and DDA agreed to allow a Chicago-based developer to lease 361 public parking spaces in the Library Lane and Fourth and William garages to support a 17-story development on the library lot owned by the city on Fifth Avenue.

Lumm said she thought it would be wise to consider other parking capacity measures beyond the Ann/Ashley addition.

Other options being considered by the DDA include a four-story, 370-space vertical addition above the Liberty Square garage and a 747-space garage on the Kline lot at Ashley and William Streets with a mix of underground and parking garages. area.

Pollay said the DDA is also asking its engineers to explore the possibility of adding more than 375 spaces to Ann/Ashley

$7 Million Renovation Planned for Area Around Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market Streets in Downtown Ann Arbor Benefit from Major Improvements Over 9 Years

Council member Kirk Westphal, D-2nd Ward, said he was worried about knee-jerk turning to increasing parking capacity. He suggested the city is undervaluing downtown parking and wondered if rate changes could meet parking demand.

City and DDA leaders acknowledge there is no certainty about how much parking will be needed in the future as the way people get around changes and self-driving cars come online .

Lazarus said he thinks it’s critical the city at least moves forward with adding Ann/Ashley now.

Pollay said the DDA is considering raising downtown parking rates, which could help fund the Ann/Ashley addition.

She announced potential rate changes for spring 2018, raising monthly permit costs by $10 to $35 per month, while on-street parking rates would increase by 10 cents per hour. Hourly parking rates would remain unchanged.

The DDA tentatively plans to hold a public hearing on the rate changes in January 2018, followed by board approval in February and implementation of the new rates in April.

Monday night’s meeting presentation also covered potential economic development opportunities, one being to allow private development on city-owned land at 415 W. Washington, a degraded property across from the YMCA, and to use tax raised fundraising revenue to help fund the Treeline Urban Trail.

Parking spaces

Parking spaces that could make you rich

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 2, 2017

According to Parkopedia Global Parking Index 2017, the most expensive cities in the United States to park are New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, and Chicago. Abroad, it’s London, Zurich, Amsterdam, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The highest average rates are around $ 600 per month in New York and London, $ 47 per day in Sydney, and $ 33 for two hours in New York.

In addition, the value of parking spaces tends to appreciate even when the overall real estate market weakens. Experts say this is due to steadily declining supply caused, in part, by developers who have successfully pressured municipalities to remove regulations to build sufficient parking (if applicable) and city planners. which advocate limited parking to encourage the use of mass transit.

Of course, the barrier to entry into some of these markets is significant. In Hong Kong, space prices can reach as high as $ 644,000, which can make any rental income derived from it appear paltry. But if you are strategic and pay attention to population density and traffic flows, you can find affordable and income-generating parking investments on the outskirts of large markets, as well as in small towns and suburban areas, said Charles Cridland, founder of YourParking Space, which he described as the Airbnb for UK parking.

The vast majority of advertisers on his platform are individuals, including his parents, who have invested part of their board in three spaces in garages near stations in the Putney and Brixton districts of south and southwest London. . They paid a total of $ 73,000 and are getting an annual return of about 7%, thanks to their son’s app, which reserves the space and collects the rent.

Most people who sign up on YourParkingSpace rent their spots by the month, Mr Cridland said, because it’s easier, especially if there’s a key fob or entry key that needs to be handed over. But he said, “We also have mini-entrepreneurs who go to friends and neighbors and ask them, ‘Can I rent your space? per day to earn a “significant secondary income”.

SpotHero, an app that helps car owners locate spaces in the United States and Canada, primarily lists excess vacancies in hotel garages. But Larry Kiss, one of the founders of the company, said he has noticed more and more independent advertisers offering space on the site, whether it is additional space in the garage. or the driveway of their house or a space they bought. Another app listing an increasing number of one-off parking spaces, as well as storage spaces, is Spacer.

Parking spaces

There is no shortage of parking spaces, what is lacking is sharing

by Deena S. Hawkins on April 1, 2017

Real estate developers and the city codes under which they operate do not appear to be successful in framing parking spaces – putting the right number in the right places – in multi-family dwellings and commercial projects in cities and suburbs.

And because a flawed policy has been in place for decades, at least according to some urban planning groups, there is in fact a large inventory of parking in most high-density or high-traffic areas. These spaces just need smarter use.

Part of this solution may reside in parking lot matching applications which, by bridging the gap between supply and demand, generate additional revenue for advertisers, convenience and profitability for drivers, and better quality of life in the neighborhood. The apps aren’t new and aren’t exclusive to the US (UK-based Just Park operates there and elsewhere), but their acceptance is growing, with the help of great planning thinkers. .

“The uniform parking standards of transport engineers and municipal ordinances apply the same guidelines whether the development is two blocks from public transport or covers the needs of two to three cars in a remote suburb,” said Linda Young, a managing director specializing in urban analysis at the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The Chicago-based nonprofit has researched Chicago’s parking patterns; Seattle; Washington DC; and the San Francisco metropolitan areas in particular.

In Chicago, for example, rental buildings are over-supplying 0.27 parking spaces for each unit.

Neighborhood tech center

Planning organizations, which previously may have been willing to wait, or had no choice but to wait, for building code policy to catch up with trends see the ‘sharing economy’ helping to mitigate the problem sooner, especially when used as part of a larger plan that includes transit subsidies, ride-sharing programs, and bike-friendly design.

Rethinking the parking economy

Parking lot rental apps, much like an Airbnb for parking, help, including the Chicago-based ParqEx app. These apps differ from apps that notify drivers of their proximity to available car parks and parking lots, such as ParkWhiz and SpotHero. Even Google Maps now lets users know if parking will be easy or limited to their destination.

Instead, these apps act as a matchmaker between building managers, individual owners, and businesses who want to generate income by renting out their parking spaces when not in use. This covers short-term use, like when drivers are heading to a restaurant, and longer-term use, perhaps securing an area near the workplace that is otherwise empty during the day. ParqEx even received accelerator support, $ 20,000, from venture capitalist Elmspring, reinforcing that smart parking should be part of smart planning. (He also raised $ 90,000 from the Milwaukee-based accelerator called gener8tor to secure a total round of $ 1.3 million in seed funding in December.)

Don’t miss:Uber, Zipcar and self-driving cars among postmen blazing a trail for the “parking scourge”

“Rather than paving more lots with parking lots, we could help each other out using what we already have,” said Vivek Mehra, CEO of ParqEx, which operates in Chicago, Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, in an interview with MarketWatch . .

“If you don’t park in your spot all day, why not list it when you’re not using it so that someone who needs a spot can use it and you earn extra income?” ” he said. That averages out at $ 116 per month in Chicago.

Read:Do you know what North Dakota needs? More parking meters

Rival app SPOT, which operates in eight cities, including Miami, Philadelphia, and notoriously car-dependent Los Angeles, offers indicative rates on its site. For example, currently in Boston’s Back Bay, average monthly rental rates are $ 285 to $ 325 for a single space, weekly rates are $ 75 to $ 90, and hourly rates range from $ 2.25 to $ 4. .

The legality of renting, essentially subletting, private parking spaces varies from place to place. A few years ago, San Francisco sued a company called Money Parking and others, accusing the sites of selling the first rights to public places on the streets.

Why the need anyway?

The parking formula shouldn’t be that hard to chew on. It is however the case. Construction requirements demand a certain number of spaces per capita, often at the request of neighbors worried that residents of a new development will gobble up scarce street parking. Insufficient supply can also endanger the marketing of real estate. But reality shows that the number of spaces allocated often exceeds the actual space needs and that parking spaces are often underutilized, by residents who rely on public transport, for example, the Center said. for Neighborhood Technology. At the same time, empty private pitches have historically been off limits to commuters or car-dependent buyers heading to a neighborhood.

Parking lots at commercial locations, or even short-income schools, have traditionally remained closed after hours for trolling drivers heading to a restaurant or a movie. The sharing economy can change that too. Mehra from ParqEx confirmed the interest of schools among its clientele.

The gap between parking supply and demand bothers the Center for Neighborhood Technology, as excessive or misused parking capacity hurts neighborhood affordability, says center; the cost of managing underused spaces is reflected in the rent.

Read: VW buys the PayByPhone mobile application

Technology can provide relatively nimble solutions to matchmaking challenges. ParqEx has already overcome a big setback to on-demand sharing: locked or security-protected parking spaces hidden behind doors or gates. The IoT capability built into its app opens 98% of portals and garage doors (once permission is granted), Mehra explained. Overall security may leave some users reluctant, and ParqEx claims that its rental inquiry and verification elevates the service over direct owner listings on Craigslist or similar personal ad sites.

For now, acceptance of widespread parking lot sharing may increase as growing pains resolve and awareness spreads. ParqEx, for example, says it has around 15,000 users; 80% are space seekers and 20% are space listers. So there is clearly a certain imbalance between supply and demand as users get interested in the concept. ParqEx will not release revenue figures for the company, but said it has seen 25% monthly revenue growth over the past 12 months.

In light of the slowness of policy development in this area, urban planning groups accept that the sharing economy, agile enough to keep pace with changes in transport and lifestyles, is taking on responsibility impatience part of the burden.

“Just after the [2008-09] recession, alternative transportation had really grabbed a new generation, whether it was a reduction in the number of cars per household, car-less cycling or carpooling, as with Uber and Lyft – not as an alternative to taxis, but as an alternative to [owning] a car itself, ”added Erin Grossi, CEO of the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

“So preferences change, but cultural measurement systems often lag behind,” she said. “Technology can be at the forefront. “

Parking spaces

Sell or rent: what to do with coveted parking spaces? | Advice from cooperatives and condominiums | Habitat review

by Deena S. Hawkins on November 24, 2016

It wasn’t that long ago that it was big news when a Manhattan condo developer started selling parking spaces for $ 1 million each.

While most buildings can only dream of generating this type of income, everyone knows that in crowded New York City, private parking spaces are a coveted commodity. Condos and cooperatives that are lucky enough to have a parking lot or garage face a thorny question: is it better to sell or rent parking spaces?

Advice to Condominiums on Fieldstone Square in the Bronx have decided to sell their spaces, starting in 2010, in order to raise a lump sum of money, says Michael dailey, Chairman of the Board of Directors. The board of directors approached the unit owners who were leasing sites and informed them of the option to purchase. Most did, says Dailey. The building raised around $ 300,000, which helped pay for masonry and roof repairs, a canopy, and renovations to dated hallways.

In addition to this work, the condominium needed to increase its reserve fund due to regulations instituted by the Federal Housing Authority in the wake of the financial crisis, Dailey said.

“At the end of 2011, we borrowed $ 350,000 and instituted an appraisal to repay it,” says Dailey, noting that neither the sales of parking spaces nor the loan were on their own sufficient to cover the work and increase the fund. Reserve.

“We are a middle class building,” says Dailey. “If we were just relying on an increase in assessment or maintenance, we would have to wait a long time before raising enough funds to complete projects.

Technically, parking spaces do not change hands. Instead, the condominium association sells what is called an “easement” for the place, which is an exclusive right to use property that belongs to someone else (in this case, the co-ownership).

Dailey believes that allowing residents to purchase their seats enhanced the building’s overall appeal. “It becomes an asset,” he says. “You can pass it on with the sale of your apartment. Parking is a premium, and I think (having) an apartment that also has a parking space with it is a very attractive thing for people looking to sell their units.

Dawn Dickstein, president of MD Squared Real Estate Group, a management company, suffered the other side of the coin. She lives in a 450-unit Upper West Side co-op where some of the 50 outdoor parking spaces were sold to shareholders as part of the initial conversion. Some places are still owned and rented by the sponsor, and the remaining 13 places are owned and rented by the cooperative society.

“We considered selling them for a while,” Dickstein says of the co-op’s 13 locations, which rent for $ 350 per month. “Now they’re probably worth around $ 60,000 or $ 75,000, but are you going (can you sell) all of them?” And if your building has a budget of $ 7 million, is it worth it? “

In general, Dickstein says she leans toward leasing parking spaces, in part because the co-op or condominium retains control of the real estate.

“Let’s say you decide you want or need to do something else with the space, like you need to move the garbage collection,” she says. “You can’t do this if you don’t own the space anymore. “

Dickstein points out that there is another consideration: the sale of an asset produces a one-time benefit; but if the council retains ownership of a parking space and rents it out, the revenues will flow in forever. What is better? It’s time for your board to do the numbers.

Parking spaces

County’s deal with Marriott includes 1,200 dedicated parking spaces

by Deena S. Hawkins on October 19, 2016

Woodmont Corner Garage is currently the largest garage in Downtown Bethesda County with 1,121 spaces

Montgomery County Department of Transportation

Marriott International officials said part of the reason the global hotel company is moving its headquarters to downtown Bethesda is to be accessible to the subway, but that doesn’t mean it expects that employees and visitors abandon their cars.

That’s why, as part of Montgomery County’s agreement with the hotel giant, the county will provide Marriott with 1,200 dedicated downtown parking spaces, county spokesman Patrick Lacefield said Wednesday.

Marriott said Tuesday it would build a new $600 million, 700,000 square foot headquarters in downtown Bethesda that would house about 3,500 employees as well as a 200-room hotel. As part of the deal, the company will receive at least $44 million in financial incentives, with the state and county each paying half. The company plans to move to the new headquarters when its lease in its Fernwood Road building expires in 2022. Marriott plans to identify a specific downtown location in the first quarter of 2017, and real estate sources tell Bethesda beat several properties that could meet the company’s requirements. .

Lacefield said the county will provide the parking spaces for $2 million per year or $40 million over 20 years as part of the agreement. He said the spaces could be built in a new county parking garage or be dedicated to Marriott in existing garages depending on the site Marriott chooses. “The precise location of these spaces or their shape depends on the site they end up occupying,” Lacefield said.

He said it was too early to tell whether 1,200 additional vehicles traveling through downtown Bethesda on weekdays would exacerbate traffic problems. He noted that Marriott has already declared the company’s interest in providing its employees with transit options.

If the county were to build a new garage for Marriott, it would be bigger than any of Bethesda County’s nine garages. The Woodmont Corner garage at the intersection of Woodmont Avenue and Old Georgetown Road is the largest in Bethesda with 1,121 spaces, while the new Capital Crescent Garage near Bethesda Row has 1,027 spaces, according to the county. transport service website.

The parking agreement was part of the county’s agreement with the state to retain Marriott, which has been headquartered in the county for 60 years. The state and county also agreed to provide the company with $22 million each in economic development funds, conditional on the company building the new headquarters and employing 3,500 people. The deal still needs to be approved by the state legislature and Montgomery County Council.

The company will also be eligible for tax credits of $15 to $18 million, under state law, according to Lacefield. He said the company would receive the credits on the condition that it add a small number of jobs – less than 100 – and build the headquarters. The county would be responsible for $10 million to $12 million of the appropriations, while the state would be responsible for the remaining $5 million to $6 million, Lacefield said.

Uncategorized

Car & Driver: refitting of parking structures for self-service cars

by Deena S. Hawkins on July 25, 2016

OEMs are aggressively targeting the holy grail of cars that drive around with no one inside, but their efforts on more mundane functionality – likely much easier to achieve – could also radically redefine our lives.

Car & Driver released a truly fascinating feature on Monday examining how automatic parking technology like Tesla’s ‘Summon’ – available today – could eliminate the way parking needs hold city residents and residents to some degree. hostage visitors.

It could also reduce the number of bangs and dents in the doors, as well as kinks in the parking fenders, which is a shame for those focusing on cosmetic crash repairs.

“Using Summon, once you’ve got home and exited Model S or Model X, you can ask him to do the rest: open your garage door, step into your door. garage, park and turn it off. In the morning you wake up, go out the front door and call your car, ”Tesla wrote in January. “He’ll open the garage door and come and say hello.” More generally, Summon also eliminates the burden of having to squeeze in and out of tight parking spots. During this beta phase of Summon, we would like customers to familiarize themselves with it on private property. Eventually, your Tesla will be able to drive anywhere across the country to meet you, recharging itself along the way. It will sync with your calendar to know exactly when to arrive.

In February, Tesla pointed out that it could reduce collisions.

“By allowing the Model S or Model X to be remotely retrieved from a parking spot, Summon gives the driver a line of sight to the danger areas around them. At the same time, ultrasonic sensors placed around the vehicle proactively protect against any invisible or moving danger and allow the car to stop as soon as it is detected, ”Tesla wrote. “If at any point during the summoning maneuver the driver decides to stop Model S or Model X, they can do so by simply pressing the app, the remote, or a door handle. While these extra layers of safety don’t completely eliminate crashes when using semi-autonomous features like Summon, when used correctly they can reduce their occurrence compared to conventional driving.

Nashville is already considering such technology with “what is believed to be the nation’s first parking structure designed for an era where cars contain valet functions like Summon and can park and connect to wider transportation networks.” Car & Driver reported.

Experts, according to Car & Driver, believe that the parking needs of residents of American cities could be changed as early as 2 to 5 years by autonomous technology.

Self-driving cars lead to the likelihood that drop-off areas are needed for vehicle occupants in front of buildings. Once the occupants have exited the cars in a designated area, the cars can park. And if there is no need for humans to get out of parked cars, they can settle into narrower bunks that can eventually shrink from a traditional width of 9.0 feet to maybe 7.0 or even 6.5 feet wide. Squeezing vehicles into smaller spaces, in turn, saves millions of dollars for builders, homebuyers and consumers. But these are just little things

Connected cars add another dimension to autonomous capabilities. Whether private or shared vehicles, the ability to convene a ride remotely means garages may not even need to be located smack in the middle of shopping districts or close to city centers. . Garages can potentially be moved out of areas where real estate is at a premium. This not only means big changes for the parking lots, but also big changes for the areas around them.

Technically, you don’t even need a self-driving car, Car & Driver observed. Simply eliminate the minimum mandatory parking spaces for residential and commercial properties and let the free market figure it out.

A 2013 UConn Honors thesis referenced in the article examined the difference between New Haven, Connecticut, and Cambridge Mass, since Cambridge focused on parking maximums rather than minimums in 1981. Basically, Cambridge did better.

“Since 1951, the supply of off-street parking has increased by almost 400% in New Haven, while employment and residential population have declined in the city,” wrote authors Bryan Blanc and Michael Gangi in 2013. “In contrast, off-street parking supply in Cambridge has increased by about 140% since 1952, while the city’s employment and residential population have increased by 50% and 67% respectively.

Or just use existing technology like Autostadt in Germany, which parks Volkswagens for delivery to drivers in an autonomous tower, as Reuters reported in 2012.

It would have inspired the briefcase fight in a robotic parking lot at the end of “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”. (The lost fight against a battle of “Hunger Games”.)

More information:

“The parking garage of the future: a big makeover to come in the autonomous era”

Driver, July 25, 2016

“Urban parking economics and land use: a case study from New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts”

Bryan Blanc and Michael Gangi University of Connecticut honors thesis, 2013

“Improve Safety and Convenience with Summon”

You’re here, February 8, 2016

Boston Parking Spots: Most Expensive Sales Since 2014

by Deena S. Hawkins on March 22, 2016

Top-notch parking spots live up to the firstborn and opening Red Sox tickets when it comes to beloved Boston possessions. Not surprisingly, residents and commuters alike will pay a high price for the best of the first.

NeighborhoodX real estate search site analyzed Boston’s most expensive parking spaces sold in 2015 and 2016 to date, and found that their price ranged from a $ 50,000 space at 5 Holyoke Street in the South End to $ 390,000 for a space at 70 Brimmer Street (aka the Brimmer Street Parking Garage) in Beacon Hill.

Based on these sales, in fact, Beacon Hill is the most expensive area to buy a parking space, followed by Back Bay and South End.

As for that Brimmer Street garage space that made nationwide news last year when it asked for $ 650,000, it’s not included in NeighborhoodX’s recap. Why? Because it never sold. The price fell to $ 415,000 and then the space completely disappeared from the market. According to Constantine Valhouli, co-founder of NeighborhoodX, Brimmer Street Garage spaces generally tend to cost $ 250,000 to $ 390,000.

A note on the graph: he focused on parking offerings that could be negotiated independently and not as part of a residency.

Parking spaces

$ 1 Million in Parking Spaces Among Premium Car Amenities at Manhattan Apts. – TriBeCa – New York

by Deena S. Hawkins on May 5, 2015

Luxury parking facilities

See the full legend

MANHATTAN – The 11-story, 31-unit boutique condo called 15 Renwick, standing in Hudson Square, will only include three parking spaces in its 1,000-square-foot garage. It will have a remote-controlled gate and direct access to the lobby, offering what the city’s elite covet: privacy.

The three parking spaces are expected to hit the market soon for $ 1 million each, according to Dan Oelsner, vice president of development for IGI-USA, which is building the project.

The locations, which will be listed along with the project’s $ 7.15 million penthouses and $ 3.5 million townhouses, were limited due to zoning and architectural considerations, Oelsner noted. .

“This type of equipment is very unique for a new development in this neighborhood,” Oelsner said.

With the number of parking lots in Manhattan disappearing – often to make way for new luxury developments – and although the number of parking spaces a developer is allowed to include remains limited – typically at 20% of the number of units residential – a private parking space becomes the ultimate status symbol.

Many developers are also betting on the next best thing: a carriage porch, which allows you to enter your building and exit your car without the masses seeing it while a valet pulls the train station for you somewhere nearby.

“The city is obviously trying to deter car traffic in Manhattan,” said Richard Cantor, of Cantor-Pecorella, an agency responsible for the sale and marketing of several new buildings with high-end garage equipment.

“[Parking] is probably the most important piece of equipment you can have in Manhattan today. People are willing to pay for it, ”he added.

Car rates in Manhattan, south of 96th Street, tend to be lower than the city average. Twenty-two percent of households in this part of Manhattan own a car, compared to 46 percent in the city as a whole. But many of the new luxury buildings developing in the area have sprawling apartments that cater to families who often own cars.

Meanwhile, Manhattan, south of 96th Street, saw a decrease of approximately 25,000 off-street public parking spaces from 1978 to 2010, according to a study by the Department of Town Planning.

The 102,000 remaining spaces cited in the report are shrinking as garages give way to these new luxury skyscrapers.

Garages tend to be top-notch development sites as they are often unmarked and can be delivered quickly as there are no tenants who would be moved, Cantor explained. His company markets 12 East 13th St. in the Village, where eight luxury units stand in place of a Hertz garage that had been there since the 1930s.

Due to the previous use of the space, the building may offer a private location for each unit. Additionally, there will be two additional spaces for sale at around $ 500,000 each, he said. (Units range from $ 6.95 million to $ 30.5 million.)

And because it was previously a garage, the building can have parking spaces on the second floor, freeing up real estate on the ground floor for income-generating uses like retail, he noted.

It will be the first building in Manhattan to use the latest version of a robotic parking system by Park More, which will automatically pick up a buyer’s car in about 60 seconds, according to building officials.

“This is the parking lot of the future. You call your car on your iPhone and it’s down to the first floor and you can slide right away.

“Buyers have responded to this approval,” Cantor said. “In the Village, this is particularly important because there is hardly any [on-street] parking – you have to move your car and drive all the way [alternate side] Dance.”

Cantor’s firm is also working on 443 Greenwich, a 53-unit building with a majestic-looking garage with a carriage entrance with white Gustavino tiled ceilings and terracotta floors.

The garage will have 15 parking spaces, each with an electric charging station, costing $ 850,000 each or $ 1.5 million for two – prices that have already risen since initial plans called for $ 500,000 in individual spaces. and $ 1 million for double seats, Cantor said. (Units range from $ 7 million to $ 51 million.)

For residents who do not purchase a parking space, a valet will park their car in the nearby TriBeCa garages.

“What we have created at 443 Greenwich responds both to a need for privacy, especially for celebrity shoppers, and also provides convenience as we have created a private area where you can park your car and leave it there. for several hours – do what you have to do – and no one sees you in the street. “

At Chelsea 551W21, the inclusion of a private parking area with valet service (in addition to a parking lot with 30 to 53 places, many with electric charging stations, the prices of which are to be determined) was considered as a ” major component “of building inspiration:” the white glove services of a bygone era, “said Erin Boisson Aries, senior general manager of building sales.

The land has a 30 foot high green wall with lush climbing ivy that will change color with the seasons. The space is intended not only to provide privacy to residents of the 44-unit apartment building where apartments will cost between $ 7.25 million and $ 40 million, but “also a sense of comfort, discretion and privacy. of distinction, ”Aries said.

There are no parking spaces at 20 east end avenue., on the Upper East Side, but there is a large enclosed motorized courtyard accessed through a 20-foot-high arched opening from the building into a paved area with a fountain and room for eight cars.

Its design pays homage to eloquent buildings like the Dakota and the Apthorp and will join the ranks as one of only five such buildings with a true porte-cochere motor court – the first to be built in 80 years, said Nicole Siciliano-Trazzera, sales manager for the project.

Siciliano-Trazzera noted that the project, like others with high-end garage equipment, is targeting sales on families who will make these units their primary residence (even if they have other homes) rather than on families. investors. The units are asking for between 4.5 and over 35 million dollars.

Families will be able to drive into the 43-unit building to unload their children and luggage in privacy, then have a staff runner park it in one of the two garages flanking the building, she added.

“You can lead a normal life without having to live in the suburbs,” she said, adding, “You’ve never seen the inside of a garage.”

Parking spaces

SF Has Enough On-Street Parking Spaces To Fill California’s Coastline

by Deena S. Hawkins on May 22, 2014

SF is crammed with car storage. This image only shows public parking spaces. Image: SFMTA

Clarification: California’s coastline (840 miles) is shorter than the end-to-end length of SF’s on-street parking spaces alone (900 miles). This post originally compared it to the length of SF’s total public parking supply (1,451 miles long), which is actually longer than the west coast of the United States from Mexico to Canada (1,360 miles). ).

Here’s a fact for naysayers who insist that SF absolutely needs every parking spot and can’t spare any for safer or more efficient streets: San Francisco has 441,950 publicly accessible parking spaces. Of that number, the 275,450 on-street parking spaces alone are enough to parallel park a line of cars 60 miles longer than the entire 840 mile California coastline, as the SFMTA pointed out. the SF examiner today. That’s enough parking to fill the parking lots that would cover the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, and Lake Merced.

The numbers come from SFMTA’s recently updated parking census. The census is a manual count taken to refine the agency’s 2010 estimate, which was based on a random 30 percent sample of city streets. Parking spaces are most heavily concentrated in dense city centers, with 35,000 parking spaces per square mile in areas such as downtown, the Civic Center, Russian Hill, and Nob Hill. At the bottom of the scale, most neighborhoods have around 10,000.

None of the counts included private parking spaces in residential garages, which are estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.

“… With nearly 10,000 vehicles registered per square mile, San Francisco today has one of the densest car concentrations on the planet, more than any other city in the United States,” said writes Jason Henderson, professor of geography at SF State University. in an SF Bay Guardian column this month.

The vast majority of sidewalk space in San Francisco is devoted to 275,450 spaces for the storage of cars. Each of these occupies about 140 square feet of land, 17 to 20 feet long and about 7 feet wide, according to the census. Ninety percent of these spaces are unmeasured and are free to use at any time of the day.

“One source of the parking problem in San Francisco is that you have some of the most valuable land on the planet, and it’s free, and people are complaining that there isn’t enough of it,” he told Examiner Donald Shoup, professor at UCLA and modern parking policy guru. “I think San Francisco needs to find a smarter way to manage parking, other than making it free for everyone.”

Shoup called the Sunday parking meter reversal to appease church leaders “yet another step back, telling the Examiner that” I believe in separating the church from the parking lot.

Bruce Osterweil, a Richmond resident, owner of a car, pointed out tthe absurdity of the situation of free parking for SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin at a community meeting yesterday, after city officials explained their proposed transport funding voting measures.

“Why can I park my car on the street for free?” Said Osterweil, who previously sat on the Geary Bus Rapid Transit Citizen Advisory Committee for ten years. “My understanding is that real estate is quite expensive in San Francisco. But we have this policy that you can own one car – or more than one car – and take up a lot of space, and park on the street for free. looks like we should be paying for all that space.

Osterweil argued that put a more rational price on parking, through Extending parking meters and permit restrictions would reduce parking demand – thereby opening up parking spaces and reducing the flow of cars driving to park, while raising funds to improve transportation options.

This is the raison d’être of the SFMTA’s SFpark program, for which the parking census was carried out. SFpark is in a transition phase at the end of its two-year pilot period, and the agency is no longer using the underground sensors that were used to collect parking usage data. The SFMTA plans to present its pilot SFpark assessment next month.

SFMTA director Reiskin said nothing in response to Osterweil’s comments, but after the meeting he told Streetsblog that the agency essentially “institutionalizes” the principles of SFpark in the agency’s general parking management program. SFpark has moved from the finance division to the sustainable streets division, he said. And instead of using sensors, SFMTA now monitors parking lot occupancy using smart meters that track payments.

Still, the SFMTA isn’t quite ready to try to expand parking meters again, after the backlash from Potrero Hill, Dogpatch and the northeastern neighborhoods of Mission. “There have been things done under the SFpark banner that hit some walls, but the general concepts, I think, have been pretty well empirically validated,” Reiskin said.

But avoiding a car-crowded future for San Francisco will ultimately require recognizing that there is an upper limit on how many cars can safely and reasonably fit on a 7-mile by 7-mile peninsula. Studies show that when more parking spaces are built – and at low cost – then more residents tend to own and drive cars.

Yet as we wrote, the more space we dedicate to parking, the less space we will have to house people – and SF is set to build an additional 92,000 personal car storage locations by 2040 under current policies.

Meanwhile, attempts by the SFMTA to take even a piece of curbside parking for protected bike lanes or transit lightbulbs invariably cause traders and residents to fight tooth and nail. to preserve every last place. And SF political leaders rarely mobilize to defend such rational efforts to reallocate public space more effectively.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize that parking is the cause of congestion,” Osterweil said. “If you charge for it, people might not have five more cars.”

Parking spaces

Two Boston parking spaces sold for $ 560,000

by Deena S. Hawkins on June 15, 2013

June 15, 2013 ?? – While recent parking tickets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Boston and San Francisco shocked readers this week, the volatile price of parking, especially residential parking, reflects the “volatile” world of urban real estate, according to real estate experts. .

The Internal Revenue Service auctioned off two residential parking spaces in Boston on Thursday for $ 560,000, and an 8-by-12-foot parking space in San Francisco’s trendy South Beach neighborhood sold for 82,000. $ the week before, as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.

“When we look at residential versus commercial parking, the overall trends are similar. But with residential parking, it’s specific to that individual block, and it’s much more variable,” said James Cook, US Director from research to real estate. Colliers International service company. “It’s also more volatile.”

It was obvious Thursday in Boston, when crowds of people gathered in the rain in the upscale Back Bay neighborhood. The IRS auctioned off two parking spaces it had seized from a man with nearly $ 600,000 in back taxes. He bought the spaces for $ 50,000 in 1993, the Boston Globe reported. Auctions started at $ 42,000.

In photos: Barneys will sell gold shoes for around $ 2,664, along with other big-ticket items

At first glance, the two parking spots can’t seem to fetch half a million dollars. They are located in what looks like an alley, behind two more parking spaces. But those two parking spots are behind Commonwealth Avenue, where a street spot sold for over $ 300,000 in 2009.

The winner, Lisa Blumenthal, already has three parking spots with her home on Commonwealth Avenue, a few blocks from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. But she told the Boston Globe that more space would allow guests and workers to park.

Blumenthal declined to comment on ABC News.

“It was a little hotter than I expected,” Blumenthal told The Globe.

Unlike Blumenthal’s new property, the Townsend Street parking spot in San Francisco that sold for $ 82,000 is in a gated parking lot attached to a condominium near the AT&T San Francisco Giant baseball stadium.

When Cook saw the headlines about parking prices, he was shocked at first, and then when he found out where the parking spaces were, they “made more sense.”

“It’s a really simple economy – the laws of supply and demand. In the United States, the world of parking, like all real estate, is a tale of two worlds.”

The two worlds Cook, who lives in rural Indiana, refers to are the major urban areas of the country, “then the rest of the United States.”

“There is no shortage of parking spaces in the rest of the nation,” Cook said. “In Indiana, I never pay for parking. It’s all about supply and demand.”

In photos: the most expensive houses in the country

“The Back Bay neighborhood is super rich, hip, expensive and one of the hardest places to find a parking space in North America,” he said.

Cook said leasing the parking space would provide a potentially stable source of income for the new owner, or that she could always resell the space.

“Either way, she’ll get the value if she sells it. There’s no loss of money for her,” said Cook, who added that wealthy homeowners in the area could most likely afford the places. .

The median home value for Back Bay in Boston, according to the Zillow Home Value Index, is $ 736,300, up 17.8% year-over-year and 2.3% from March to April 2013.

In South Beach in San Francisco, it stands at $ 931,200, up 27.8% year-over-year and 1% month-over-month from March to April.

“These are the coolest, trendiest places to live. The general trend is that leading US urban markets have led the real estate recovery. There has been a real bifurcation,” he said.

Retail real estate sales and rental prices in New York and San Francisco are “astronomical,” Cook said.

“You would think there has never been a recession. In the rest of the United States, there is an ongoing recovery,” he said.

Colliers International published a list of the most expensive central business districts for parking in October. They studied dozens of shopping areas and found that New York, Boston, and San Francisco topped the median rates for unreserved monthly parking spots. In other words, they are non-designated parking spaces such as parking garages without specific and designated locations.

Here is the Necklaces list of the 17 best US cities according to median monthly rates:

1. New York, NY – Midtown: $ 562

2. New York, NY – Downtown $ 533

3. Boston, Massachusetts: $ 405

4. San Francisco, California: $ 375

5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: $ 313.25

6. Chicago, Illinois: $ 289

7. Seattle, Washington: $ 285

8. Washington, DC $ 270

9. Honolulu, Hawaii: $ 230

10. Los Angeles, California: $ 220.93

11. Oakland, California: $ 195

12. Bellevue, Washington: $ 195

13. Hartford, Connecticut: $ 189.74

14. Portland, Oregon: $ 185

15. Denver, Colorado: $ 180

16. San Diego, California: $ 175

17. Minneapolis, Minnesota: $ 175