Parking problem downtown - too much of it? Not enough?

[wingbert]

1 hour ago, MJLO said:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2017/12/downtown_parking_garage_next_t.html#incart_2box_news_grand-rapids

Looks like the ramp at the library is a go.

[GR_Urbanist]

That's great to hear that it is on the move!

I just hope they really come up with better site plans. I just cant shake the fact that they aren't factoring in the library and guaranteed future expansion needs, but are presenting a somewhat out-of-place residential component, and leaving a sizeable portion blank for some useless green space or a plaza when you have Vetern's park across the street and CC's student plaza to the north.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2017 by GR_Urbanist

[joeDowntown]

6 hours ago, MJLO said:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2017/12/downtown_parking_garage_next_t.html#incart_2box_news_grand-rapids

Looks like the ramp at the library is a go.

The thing I like about the Library site is that I don’t think this lot is really a candidate for a massive development, so I don’t feel like we’re losing a prime development spot. But it’s really close to Division and Fulton/Jefferson which could spur additional development. 

I also think if priced right, it can relieve some of the center city ramps, opening up additional space in those lots. It adds capacity overall, but also can shift parking to the east, potentially opening spots in the core. 

Joe

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

The thing I like about the Library site is that I don’t think this lot is really a candidate for a massive development, so I don’t feel like we’re losing a prime development spot. But it’s really close to Division and Fulton/Jefferson which could spur additional development. 

I also think if priced right, it can relieve some of the center city ramps, opening up additional space in those lots. It adds capacity overall, but also can shift parking to the east, potentially opening spots in the core. 

Joe

And the Silver Line and the #6 pass right by it. What's not to love!!!

[Morris]

Thinking out of the box, build at Heartside Park....under the park...Detroit and other cities, have parking structures under the ground and park above it.....The city can have their green area, and a very large parking lot, in the same space.

[Prankster]

8 hours ago, Morris said:

Thinking out of the box, build at Heartside Park....under the park...Detroit and other cities, have parking structures under the ground and park above it.....The city can have their green area, and a very large parking lot, in the same space.

Great idea, but cost prohibitive. The cost per space goes up exponentially when building underground vs above ground. 

[GR8scott]

On 12/21/2017 at 11:15 AM, demhem said:

This I agree with. Some of the acceleration and deceleration lanes, particularly downtown, are incredibly short. 

There’s also a major difference and need to go from 2 lane sections with little and left merges to a Safer and quicker 3+ lanes with better merge. 2 lanes is what is the minimal requirement and what is sufficiently used in places like rural Montana where traffic counts are 1% of the traffic counts in a 2 lane urban freeway in GR. True that going from 5 lanes and expanding to 6 the impact on traffic is minimal. Going from 2 to 3 lanes is long overdue here.

[GRDadof3]

The Planning Commission has on its next agenda to look at building a surface lot at 1136 Plainfield, 50+/- parking spaces. 

This property has been for sale for a while, kind of a funky area just south of Leonard and Plainfield;

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9833913,-85.6680159,3a,75y,117.85h,96.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srW0La84EryU4bqD--0rgsw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

[ctpgr34]

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

The Planning Commission has on its next agenda to look at building a surface lot at 1136 Plainfield, 50+/- parking spaces. 

This property has been for sale for a while, kind of a funky area just south of Leonard and Plainfield;

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9833913,-85.6680159,3a,75y,117.85h,96.79t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srW0La84EryU4bqD--0rgsw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Applicant is Bill Mast/Visser Bros.  What would the point of a parking lot be at that location?

[mgreven]

Off site parking for Homewood Suites at the Waters Building. Employees and long term stays. 

[WMrapids]

I really Ike the amphitheater/ sledding hill proposal.

I hope that this and the revamped Calder Plaza happen. Anything that can be interactive with the public is a huge plus.

[GRDadof3]

17 hours ago, mgreven said:

Off site parking for Homewood Suites at the Waters Building. Employees and long term stays. 

Smart move on their part. 

[GRDadof3]

DGRI is claiming on their FB page that there are 4700 parking spaces in the works, with a net gain of 2740 spaces, and they're catching hell for it. Yet they won't provide a report for where they're coming up with these numbers. 

Anyone know the math? Warner Tower - how many net spots added to the system available for monthly parking? The new Meijer/Bridge Street Market - they cite that as adding a net to the system? Ionia/McConnell they mention, which the city shows 0 available. 

My guess is they're counting ramp spaces in places like 601 Bond or 601 West, which is pretty shady to me. Are any of those privately owned spaces available to monthly permit parking? 

 

 

 

 

[GRDadof3]

They're doubling down on social media 

I can't believe how slimy this is. Did they hire a PR firm or something?

[thebeerqueer]

 

I hope they continue to get called on the carpet for these alternative facts.

[GRDadof3]

8 minutes ago, thebeerqueer said:

 

I hope they continue to get called on the carpet for these alternative facts.

I personally think they should get FOIA'd by the local media for this report they're talking about but I think because they are DGRI.Inc, they may be exempt? 

[ctpgr34]

43 minutes ago, GRDadof3 said:

I personally think they should get FOIA'd by the local media for this report they're talking about but I think because they are DGRI.Inc, they may be exempt? 

Just asking, why is it bad that DGRI mention that  "We now count 4,700 parking spaces recently completed, under construction or in the development pipeline around Downtown."  

Edited February 7, 2018 by ctpgr34

[GRDadof3]

17 minutes ago, ctpgr34 said:

Just asking, why is it bad that DGRI mention that  "We now count 4,700 parking spaces recently completed, under construction or in the development pipeline around Downtown."  

Because it's attempting to fight the impression that the city is doing nothing to address the parking shortage. But it's disingenuous at best. How many of those 4700 parking spaces will be available for public monthly permits, where the biggest shortage is happening? I don't know if any of them are. The great majority of those 4700, which seems to be them counting all of the private residential developments who are adding their own parking, won't even be available to the public at all. It's them taking credit for something they really had nothing to do with, and which doesn't address the issues. 

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Because it's attempting to fight the impression that the city is doing nothing to address the parking shortage. But it's disingenuous at best. How many of those 4700 parking spaces will be available for public monthly permits, where the biggest shortage is happening? I don't know if any of them are. The great majority of those 4700, which seems to be them counting all of the private residential developments who are adding their own parking, won't even be available to the public at all. It's them taking credit for something they really had nothing to do with, and which doesn't address the issues. 

Off the top of my head, only the surface lot they recently completed, the Celebration Cinema lot (which also eliminates a fair number of spaces, so the net gain is maybe 450?), and the Library lot are "their doing". I also think it's a little disingenuous to count ramps like Warner Tower, 601 Bond, the recently announced Spectrum / Grand Valley ramp, etc. It all depends on how much they worked with the other developments to provide additional parking, but I bet it wasn't a whole lot...

Joe

[GRDadof3]

31 minutes ago, joeDowntown said:

Off the top of my head, only the surface lot they recently completed, the Celebration Cinema lot (which also eliminates a fair number of spaces, so the net gain is maybe 450?), and the Library lot are "their doing". I also think it's a little disingenuous to count ramps like Warner Tower, 601 Bond, the recently announced Spectrum / Grand Valley ramp, etc. It all depends on how much they worked with the other developments to provide additional parking, but I bet it wasn't a whole lot...

Joe

This is what they provided. So add on the GVSU/Spectrum ramp and you get the 4700-ish they're talking about. How many of these  spaces though did the city lease? Or will be available for public parking (people not patronizing the development itself?). 10 Ionia on here is probably a no-go, as well as Keeler. This was from a presentation given back in July 2017. 

Bridge Street Market ramp has to support all of that residential as well as Meijer shoppers. 

Warner Tower - is any of that going to be available for the public? I can't recall. 

Studio Park - we already know is a net loss. The 750 has to support the hotel, residential, theater, office building and phase II residential.

234 Market, Rivers Edge, 601 Bond, Embassy Suites, all private. Grand View Place, 50 Monroe, MSU Research, 822 Ottawa (Zoko), 840 Ottawa (Integrated Arch), 601 LMD..... all private lots. 

@joeDowntownthe city only leased 300 spaces at the Studio Park development, which is a net loss from what was there before.

 

[joeDowntown]

Sorry, I wasn’t taking into account the number of spaces that would be earmarked for the other buildings/uses on site. 

Joe

[Allison Slater]

I got curious and applied some extremely rough math  to all of this to get a better idea of what the real overall parking picture looks like when considering how much of a demand these projects are going to put on parking vs how much they actually provide.  My extremely rough, unprofessional estimate is that there's really only a net gain of 458 parking spaces in that table GRDad provided.  This does not factor in surface spaces lost to the development (such as the total spaces in Arena 4/5 before construction) and does not factor in the GVSU/Spectrum ramp since that is not in the table. If someone has reliable stats for that I could plug in, I'm all ears. It also does not include Keeler and 10 Ionia since both seem dead. It also does not distinguish between daytime, evening, and night-time demand levels.  So take the whole thing with a box of salt. Methodology for the numbers in the spreadsheet.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SaROhzG47ipduHgQmbIhuNKQyzj5R62jQTA_pzN7zv0 

[joeDowntown]

9 hours ago, tSlater said:

I got curious and applied some extremely rough math  to all of this to get a better idea of what the real overall parking picture looks like when considering how much of a demand these projects are going to put on parking vs how much they actually provide.  My extremely rough, unprofessional estimate is that there's really only a net gain of 458 parking spaces in that table GRDad provided.  This does not factor in surface spaces lost to the development (such as the total spaces in Arena 4/5 before construction) and does not factor in the GVSU/Spectrum ramp since that is not in the table. If someone has reliable stats for that I could plug in, I'm all ears. It also does not include Keeler and 10 Ionia since both seem dead. It also does not distinguish between daytime, evening, and night-time demand levels.  So take the whole thing with a box of salt. Methodology for the numbers in the spreadsheet.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SaROhzG47ipduHgQmbIhuNKQyzj5R62jQTA_pzN7zv0 

Nice job! The thing about 10 Ionia is that even if it does get built, I would imagine that would be a net negative. At the size proposed I would imagine the loss of parking on the lot, combined with the new ramp (and use for offices and apartments) would push monthly parkers out (or at least show now appreciable gain in parking). Keep up the good work!

Joe

[GRDadof3]

9 hours ago, tSlater said:

I got curious and applied some extremely rough math  to all of this to get a better idea of what the real overall parking picture looks like when considering how much of a demand these projects are going to put on parking vs how much they actually provide.  My extremely rough, unprofessional estimate is that there's really only a net gain of 458 parking spaces in that table GRDad provided.  This does not factor in surface spaces lost to the development (such as the total spaces in Arena 4/5 before construction) and does not factor in the GVSU/Spectrum ramp since that is not in the table. If someone has reliable stats for that I could plug in, I'm all ears. It also does not include Keeler and 10 Ionia since both seem dead. It also does not distinguish between daytime, evening, and night-time demand levels.  So take the whole thing with a box of salt. Methodology for the numbers in the spreadsheet.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1SaROhzG47ipduHgQmbIhuNKQyzj5R62jQTA_pzN7zv0 

Well there's also the situation where Arena 4 and 5 lot users, which is about 595 spots, are about to be pushed out to other lots to make way for Studio Park. If you count the 301 spaces at Ionia McConnell (which don't show up on the city's website yet as available) and the 66 available in the city's inventory, that seems like a deficit to me for the 2 years or so it will take to get the Studio Park ramp built. 

The worst part is this hurts small businesses, who can't afford to "build their own parking ramp," and are trying to attract talent. 

I know the city is embroiled in this city manager search and having to start it all over again, so I would imagine no one is interested in talking about parking...

[wingbert]

But this is great bicycling weather we're having.  People don't need to drive a car downtown.