AgdaPkt 2005-04-11 - Laserfiche WebLink

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¡,6'- ~ activity that it will experience. The cinema is expected to bring over one million new visitors to Downtown each year. This could mean another 2,000 to 5,000 people per day. This will be a huge boon for Downtown. All of these people will enliven Downtown sidewalks, spend money in Downtown businesses, and help make Downtown Redwood City an alive, vibrant, and "happen in' place." Since most of these new visitors will be arriving by automobile, one of the most critical issues at hand is parking. There must be parking available for the new visitors, and it must be easy to use and situated for the varying needs of the different users of the system. Fortunately, Downtown Redwood City currently has enough parking. According to surveys of the current parking situation, even during our peak hours of activity many spaces sit empty- as many as 30% to 40% of the supply. Granted, they are not the most desirable spaces, but they are availl3ble within an easy walk of activity centers. With the addition of the "On Broadway" project, the new City-operated garage, and the City's agreement with the County to use their garage on weekends and some weekday nights, we believe é¡ðequate parking will be available. According to the cinema EIR, on the busiest nights of the year, with maximum activity at the cinema and sold-out shows at the Fox and Little Fox theaters (a rare occasion) there will still be a slight surplus of spaces. Thankfully, we don't have to build our way out of a deficit. However, because our surplus is minimal, our parking supply must grow as Downtown continues to develop. This will be slightly more challenging in Downtown Redwood City than in other environments. Opportunities to create inexpensive new surface parking lots are limited due to rising land costs and limited sites. Above-ground parking structures are very expensive and can cost $15,000 to $20,000 per stall for construction, not including land costs. Underground garages are even more expensive, running $30,000 per new stall or more. In addition, our high water table adds to the expense of this option. Finally, the City Council is committed to the creation of nice places, and large expanses of asphalt and bunker~like parking garages are not exactly nice places. Redwood City therefore needs to manage its available parking carefully. The solution to Downtown parking seems to have two main policy aspects: parking management and parking requirements. Parking management refers to prices, time limits, permits, and other regulation of the public parking supply in order to better allocate parking and to appropriately distribute parkers. Parking management can make fewer spaces fee/like more and can make the parking system more efficient by making available convenient spaces in the core. Parking requirements refer to the number of new parking spaces that must be constructed when future new buildings are built in Downtown. Parking requirements can help ensure that the Downtown parking supply grows as Downtown grows. However, great care must be taken with parking requirements, because unnecessarily high requirements can make development cost- prohibitive and stifle investment in Downtown. REDEVSHARED/2005 STAFF REPORTS/O4-2005/Downtown Parking Management Plan DZ:CJe 2