The consulting team believes that the collection of this type of data would not be useful for the study of the parking conditions for the South Grand Business District. There are four large parking lots where such a study could be useful to individual property owners. These lots are:
Botanicals & Once Upon A Vine - 56 spaces
Streetside & The Bread Company - 83 spaces
Commerce Bank Lots - 181 spaces
St. Pius Church & School - 72 spaces
The Botanicals lot study would be useful to inform the property owner of the intensity of use of their current parking lot that is solely reserved for use by the businesses adjacent to the lot, and if additional parking is needed at peak hours, and if sublease of some parking is possible here at non-peak times.
The Streetside and Bread Company lot was recently expanded (probably after some study) due to the parking demand that these businesses had. No further study of this lot is warranted at this time.
The Commerce Bank lot is known to be mostly empty most of the time. No study is necessary to prove this intuitively known fact at this time. The problem with this lot is a signage and perception issue. If the lot was designated with proper public parking signage, a detailed study could be more warranted. As it currently exists, the public does not use this lot since it is seen as private parking for the bank. City Properties has offered this lot as parking for the Dickman Building office space, but many possible tenants viewed this as inadequate or too remote from the office building.
The St. Pius Church lot is large enough to warrant a use study, but fewer parking problems have been emphasized at this south end of the Business District. The one possible "shared" use for this lot would be for the high concentration of apartments (with no parking) on the end of City block 1489 (between Humphrey and Utah). Residential parking on the St. Pius lot could be regulated by the purchase of a parking sticker to be placed in the window of the resident's car. Shared parking for the ground floor commercial properties is possible, but difficult to control. The best manner to control this daytime commercial public parking would be with the use of parking meters (owned and operated by the church). Since this parking lot is part of a school playground, shared use should be carefully reviewed, and fenced separation should be considered to separate any public shared lot use and the play area on the eastern end of this property. About 24 to 26 parking spaces could easily be fenced off fronting Grand, with access to both Grand and McKean.
All other parking lots within the Business District are too small for a specific parking study for absorption or turnover rates to be of any use. The parking system is too fragmented in the overall district for a focused lot study. A full parking lot of 14 or 17 cars is insignificant in relation to the readily available parking on the street near by these lots. Such a specific absorption and turnover study would need to include a large portion of the surrounding streets, private lots, and public parking lots to show any telling information. Such information has already been suggested in the focus groups. Peak demand around the areas with restaurants occurs at dinnertime, when residents are returning home from work. The demand is particularly acute during Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.