[TGE-mail] Parking lots on Grand

Fri Mar 9 14:42:01 CST 2007

This is amazing to me.  I am wondering if anyone is actually reading my
emails.  Bruce if you and the others, that are so opposed to the
additional parking, which will be good for business on South Grand, want
to approach Commerce with a plan and financing to build retail and
parking now I am sure they would listen.  Everyone wants and wants and
wants, but I don't see anyone willing to have the personal financial
risk attached to your wants.  Residential density as well as a dense
commercial district are vital, I agree completely.  But until there is a
sufficient demand additional parking is needed.  Many of you I am sure
opposed the removal of the homes behind the Bread Company a few years
ago.  And there still is not enough parking.  And in regards to
Absolutely Goosed and the other retail venues around that business this
additional parking will only help their businesses and increase
pedestrian activity on the east side of Grand. Won't more consumers help
with that problem?  Of course it will.  It is virtually imposible to
find a park by Absolutely Goosed now.  I am sure if you were to talk
with South City Diner, they would tell you that the small lot to the
south off Grand is good for their business.  And finally the area behind
Commerce will be developed as Condos, and as I have stated over and over
again this lot per Commerce will be temporary until the demand justifies
the enormous amount of capital needed to build the planned retail and
parking garage.sspp

Timothy Vogt

Vice President 

Millennium Restoration & Development Corp.

P: 314.772.9200

F: 314.772.9201

-----Original Message-----
From: tgena-bounces at lists.more.net [mailto:tgena-bounces at lists.more.net]
On Behalf Of Bruce Ponman
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 1:38 PM
To: tgena at lists.more.net
Subject: Re: [TGE-mail] Parking lots on Grand

Tim,

I'm affraid you've got things turned around. Bottom line: if there
aren't more businesses on South Grand, fewer people will make the trip
and additional parking spaces will go unused. People do not go to the
CWE (or the East Village, for that matter) because there's excellent
parking, they go because there are interesting businesses there. And
restaurants in particular benefit from proximity to other restaurants;
density is good far all. Right now the east side of Grand between
Hartford and Absolutly Goosed is a dead zone after dark, unless you want
to buy gas. This area, with little light and activity is a drag on
existing businesses. A surface parking lot does nothing to address that
problem. There is no reason why a row of retail space can't be built
along Grand with parking directly behind, as was successfully done one
block to the north behind the bread company. Why does the parking lot
have to go to the street?

Bruce Ponman

TGE resident

PS. It's not at all clear that the studies you site have got it right.
The following is taken from a review of Donald Shoup's book, The High
Cost of Free Parking, that appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of the Next
American City.

America's love affair with the automobile, and the toll it has taken on
both the built and natural environments, has been well documented.
Surprisingly, then, UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup's meticulously
researched book, The High Cost of Free Parking, is the first to treat in
depth the subject of automobile parking, the state in which the "average
car spends about 95 percent of its life." It is a subject of great
financial consequence: according to figures developed by University of
California at Davis professor Mark Delucchi and updated by Shoup to
account for inflation and the number of motor vehicles owned in the
United States, in 2002 the subsidy for off-street parking alone was
between $127 billion and $374 billion. This figure is roughly the same
amount as our nation's Medicare or national defense budgets-without
including subsidies for the free on-street parking that exists on most
urban streets. 

While many American cities believe they suffer from a parking shortage,
the real problem is that they have too much free parking. Over the last
sixty-plus years, planning for parking has meant planning to provide
parking without cost, and America has provided enough to satisfy 99
percent of all automobile trips to the home, office, or shopping. This
superabundance has had costs well beyond municipal subsidies: parking
lots mar the urban landscape, the high cost of providing parking makes
developing affordable housing more difficult, and free parking skews
transportation choices toward driving, thereby increasing congestion and
pollution and encouraging sprawl. And because the cost of providing
parking spaces is bundled into the cost of development, Shoup explains,
this so-called "free" parking is actually paid for by everyone.
Off-street parking, required by municipalities for nearly every land
use, is expensive to provide. But rather than directly charge drivers
who use the parking, developers absorb the costs of providing parking.
The higher cost of development translates into higher rents in
residential and office buildings and into higher retail costs in
commercial buildings. Not everyone chooses to drive; yet we all
subsidize drivers indirectly by paying higher costs passed on to us.

  _____  

From: tgena-bounces at lists.more.net [mailto:tgena-bounces at lists.more.net]
On Behalf Of Tim Vogt
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 11:36 AM
To: MFord816 at cs.com; tgena at lists.more.net
Subject: Re: [TGE-mail] Parking lots on Grand

I have stated numerous times the result of those studies.  This is a lot
not a vast ocean of parking.  Bottom line is that if there is not
parking there will be no customers.  Everything happens in good time,
and I am sure if a group of you wanted to approach Commerce to buy the
building at the corner of Juniata and Grand and invest millions of your
own dollars to build the retail and parking, they would probably be very
receptive.

Timothy Vogt

Vice President 

Millennium Restoration & Development Corp.

P: 314.772.9200

F: 314.772.9201

-----Original Message-----
From: tgena-bounces at lists.more.net [mailto:tgena-bounces at lists.more.net]
On Behalf Of MFord816 at cs.com
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 6:44 AM
To: tgena at lists.more.net
Subject: [TGE-mail] Parking lots on Grand

I have to weigh in on the side of the residents who are concerned about
parking lots fronting on Grand. The city is not suburbia - people live
here because we don't want to see vast oceans of parking everywhere. And
yes,
it does affect the walkability. There was a parking study done years ago
for the South Grand business district. Does anybody have the results of
that?
At what point did this street-fronting parking lot idea come into play?

Mary
26xx Louisiana

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