Downtown workers encouraged to use parking decks, not meters
By Jill Nolin • September 16, 2009
montgomeryadvertiser.com
When Bob Parker told people that his business group was thinking about opening a restaurant in downtown Montgomery, they thought he was crazy. They told him there wouldn't be enough parking spaces for his customers.
But Dreamland Bar-B-Que has been open for six months, and patrons are finding places to park.
Parker said parking became a non-issue for him after he counted the spaces on the block around The Alley, where Dreamland is located, and tallied as many as 150. Then he heard about the city's plan to build a deck about a block away on Coosa Street.
"It helped get that issue off our mind," Parker said of the Coosa Street parking deck.
Parker said he's more concerned about life after Biscuits baseball than he is about parking. He said this is generally a concern shared with other potential investors who are eyeing downtown. But two weeks after the season has wrapped up, two events at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel and Spa at the Convention Center have kept the Alley busy, Parker said.
The city of Montgomery has funneled a significant amount of resources into bulking up the parking capacity in downtown to be able to attract more retail and commercial development. Just in the past two years, the city's efforts have added
937 spaces by adding three decks to downtown.
That's in addition to the
543 spaces available at the City Hall parking deck on Monroe Street, which was built in the 1980s and is open to the public, and the 140 spaces available in the large parking lot located in front of the Union Station Train Shed.
But now city officials want people to use the decks and leave the metered spaces available for shoppers and short-term parkers. They are trying to find ways to discourage downtown employees, such as state workers, who set up in a space and stay all day.
To do this, the City Council recently approved parking rate increases downtown. The hourly rate went from 25 cents to 50 cents, and the parking fine is now $10, up from $4. Deputy Mayor Jeff Downes said it is the stiffer fine that is intended to drive people into the parking decks. It is $4 cheaper for someone to park in a deck for a day rather than park in a metered spot and get a $10 fine.
"You're not supposed to re-feed a meter. The risk is the $10 fine," Downes said. "The safer bet, if you're going to be there for more than two hours, is to go to the parking deck."
It costs $50 a month -- the cost of getting five tickets in a month -- to park in the Coosa Street, Washington Avenue and intermodal parking decks. The maximum cost for parking for a day is $6. As for the City Hall parking deck, there are 543 spaces available, and city vehicles only use about one-fourth of it, Downes said. The fee for non-city employees is $40 per month and $6 per day.
But for some people, the incentive was not needed. It became clear before the Coosa Street deck opened and months before the parking rates and fines were changed that there was not enough space available to meet the demand, according to Downes. When the deck opened a few weeks ago, it filled up.
The level of popularity at each lot is indicative of the activity going on around them, Downes said.
While the Coosa Street deck is booked up with subscribers, the Washington Avenue deck can boast only a handful of committed parkers. The reason for this isn't difficult to discern. The Coosa Street deck is located next to the Riverwalk Stadium, the Alley and several large private offices.
"Everybody started standing in line for those spaces during the construction phase. We realized pretty rapidly that there was more demand than there was supply," Downes said.
The Washington Avenue deck sits on a block that has yet to benefit from the downtown redevelopment. But the
237-space deck was built at Washington Avenue because city officials expect the momentum of revitalization to eventually reach the lower Dexter Avenue area, which has only experienced light redevelopment interest so far.
Building the deck is an act of faith. The structure cost the city $5.7 million in Tax Increment Financing funds. The Washington and Coosa decks are both in the city and county's TIF district. This makes the projects eligible for the property tax revenue that is set aside for capital projects as the property values in the TIF district increase.
The Washington Avenue deck is expected to see a significant increase in activity once the city moves several departments into 25 Washington Ave., which is next to the parking deck.
"Right now, that deck is not highly utilized," Downes said. "However, in the next two or three months, we should see that change dramatically."
TIF money was also used to build the
305-space Coosa Street deck, which cost $6.8 million.
The parking deck at the intermodal facility on Molton Street, which is the headquarters for the Montgomery Area Transportation System, has
395 spaces. It was built using federal transportation funds. It cost $7.1 million to build the entire intermodal center, which includes the parking deck.
While it costs $50 or $40 a month for a parking subscription, it costs $70 for a reserved space. About 30 spaces were left open in the Coosa Street deck for those who do not routinely have business in downtown but choose to park there.
It costs $55 a month per space to park in the parking lot at Commerce and Tallapoosa streets and a parking control arm will be added in the next 30 days.
This area will eventually be transformed from parking spaces into a city park, a place for nature lovers instead of cars. But the funding for that project is unavailable right now, Downes said.
Downes said the revenue from the parking decks goes into operational and maintenance costs for the decks.
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