AgdaPkt 2005-06-06 - Laserfiche WebLink

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!J � " � precisely because they contain so many activities in such a sma11 area. The conventional approach to parking spreads things out to the point where a real downtown just isn't possible. Our favorite downtowns—whether they be the big Downtown Chicago, the medium-sized Savannah, Georgia, or the sma11 Downtown Cannel—would not be possible to build under conventional codes. But would we be better off without Carmel, Savannah, or Chicago (or Redwood City, for that matter)? No! These are great places and we must retain them and expand them. However, even if we didn't care about creating nice places and we wanted to apply the conventional parking approach to Downtown, we probably couldn't. Property values are incredibly high in Downtown and they're getting higher. This makes surface parking lots an unattractive proposition. Anyone who pays top dollar for land wants to have as much of it generating revenue as possible, and surface parking doesn't do that. Above-ground parking structures aze much more efficient with land, but they are very, very expensive. In fact, they tend to cost $20,000 to $25,000 or more per space. Underground garages are the most land-efficient, but they are also the most expensive. The new municipal garage under the retaiUcinema project is costing the City about $30,000 per space. New garages in Palo Alto cost their local government nearly $51,000 per net new space. Put simply, we cannot just build our way out of this situation. Do we need to have enough parking? Absolutely. But we must be sure to have "just enough" and not "more than enough." And with that just enough amount we must be very shrewd and efficient, in order to make it work as well as possible. The Current Downtown Parking Situation The Downtown Parking Management Plan will look at the area shown in FiEure 1 Page 33 , which is generally bounded by the Caltrain tracks, Brewster, Veterans, and Maple. In this area there is a parking supply of 6,135 spaces. 1,229 of these are City-operated on-street spaces. The City operates another 1,627 spaces in off street-facilities (including the new Jefferson Garage). In addition there are 1,674 spaces operated by other governmental agencies and at least 1,605 operated by private entities. Cit -Controlled Downtown Parkin On-Street S aces � �229 Jefferson Gara e under the cinema 5� Middlefield Lot 2 � Marshall Gare e round floor ��2 Marshall Gara e u er floors 2� Main Street Lot 15 � Librar Lot 51 Winslow Lot 53 Per Street Lot 52 Ci Hall Lot 139 TOTAL 2�856 pas�e 3