South Grand Parking Study
September 9, 2002

Mark O'Bryan distributed a handout on residential parking statistics, study boundary definition, and absorption/turnover rates of specific parking lots. Also included a spreadsheet from the Program Document with a correction of the number of parking spaces on the Commerce Bank lot. All handouts will be available on SLACO's website.

Emily - Mark prepared this handout because there was some confusion after the last meeting about these three topics. Particularly the residential parking statistics, which were collected by volunteers, weren't included in the Program Document.

Mark O'Bryan - These, along with handouts on the questionnaires, will be incorporated into the program document.

Paul Stefanski - At the last meeting, we talked a little about how Michelle Maple went back and double-checked whether or not parking behind the house (on a parking pad or garage) was inadequate for the residence. How did you do that?

Michelle Maple - We went back to the 3600 block of Hartford and did a spot check. We also interviewed several residents.

Mark O'Bryan - I made a few other changes to the data collected in terms of apparent typographical errors or different addresses. I input the information collected by the volunteers directly on to the base map. The spreadsheet shows the parking data collected by the volunteers, highlighting the streets with high percentage of properties with no parking in bold. The spreadsheet further shows additional detail on comparison of the existing parking data in relationship of minimum residential parking standards of 2 spaces for single family residential and 1 space per unit of multi-family buildings. Many more properties have inadequate parking, and this data corresponds quite frequently with streets with many rental properties.

See handout on residential parking statistics.

Dave Drebes - You could probably also get data from the census on car ownership.

Mark O'Bryan - Almost every block east of Grand has inadequate off-street parking. The key thing on residential parking is how do you incorporate residential parking into business parking needs? How can you regulate residential parking? It's very difficult. We have some suggestions. The residential surveys showed that our idea about offering low interest loans was not popular. One suggestion would be to make a policy change so that landlords have to provide adequate parking for each unit - it could be tied to the occupancy permit. Mostly, this is about a land struggle and there will be trade-offs.

Susan Anderson - Looking at the spreadsheet. On the east side of Grand on Connecticut, the number of homes with inadequate parking and the number of homes with no parking doesn't sum up to the number of properties.

Mark O'Bryan - Those two numbers don't sum. The number of properties with no parking was rolled into the number with inadequate parking.

Paul - Do most areas with inadequate parking coincide with multi-family buildings? Will dealing with residential parking shortages help alleviate some of the hot spots in the business district?

Mark O'Bryan - The really large apartment buildings are actually a part of the business district, so their parking needs aren't reflected in this spreadsheet. Some of those buildings have some dedicated parking, others have none. But working on residential parking needs on side streets will certainly help create space for businesses.

Patrick Moore - Will we add these large apartment buildings and their needs into the study?

Mark O'Bryan - The gross square footage of these large apartment buildings in included. Usually, in analyzing apartment buildings you look at cars per unit, rather than square footage. Again, we can work towards landlords taking responsibility for parking. They do this in University City not just for multi-unit buildings but for home sales. You can't sell your home until adequate parking is provided.

Michelle - The City of St. Louis Building Division is looking into this in the Gravois Park neighborhood connected to the occupancy permit inspections. But it's been slow going.

Brian Marston - I think this needs to be looked at as an incentive rather than a punitive thing.

Mark O'Bryan - Exactly. This allows us to look for other solutions rather than the no-brainer of tearing down structures and paving. Since the City often has little money, maybe the businesses could sponsor low-interest loans for residents to repair garages or create parking pads.

Paul - From a residential point of view, having mandatory residential parking standards would be really tough. Instead, it's better to offer incentives.

There was some discussion on carports and whether a resident could build one in Tower Grove Heights due to it being on the National Register of Historic Places. There was no final agreement on this issue.

Mary Lisa Penilla - I have recently moved into the neighborhood and am not familiar with all the details of the project. We're talking a lot about residential parking. Is this study looking at existing parking lots?

Emily - Mary Lisa, we're discussing residential parking statistics right now because the Consulting Team recently analyzed some data collected by volunteers on garage and parking pads. In terms of the data analysis for the entire study, we are mainly focusing on the business district and all the existing lots are included. Because the residential area and business district are adjacent, however, it's helpful to look at both sets of information.

Paul - Do we have a number yet that shows the demand vs. the need?

Mark O'Bryan - In this case, the Dickman building throws everything off.

Paul - What about realistic solutions? Is our input being valued here? I mean, people aren't going to like the idea of paving back yards for parking.

Mark O'Bryan - The idea, as presented in the questionnaires, is not necessarily that residents pave their backyard in order to provide parking for the business district, but that businesses might acquire properties adjacent to the business district as buffer properties and provide parking in back. That's why we asked questions about the density and the acceptance of a few low-impact buffer businesses. People generally agreed with the need for a dense area and would accept all the buffer businesses except drinking establishments. Eventually, as density in the district increases and there's an even larger demand for parking, the buffer buildings could be demolished and structured parking with commercial spaces on the street level could be built.

Paul - Wouldn't commercial spaces in these buildings eat up more parking than they could provide?

Mark O'Bryan - Not necessarily. For example, if you look at the garage in University City. The garage provides more parking spaces than necessary per square footage of the retail on street level. That garage still has space for all the businesses in the Tivoli building.

Paul - What about behind Commerce Bank? Those properties on Juniata slated to be rehabbed - is it worth it? They're pretty isolated and surrounded by parking. Wouldn't it make more sense to use that space for parking?

Mark O'Bryan - Is the Commerce Bank lot ever full? Tim Boyle, working with the bank, has offered potential tenants that space for parking. They say it's too far. So I don't know if those lots would make good parking for the business district.

Paul - The need or desire for adjacent parking is just not possible in urban areas like this. I can't believe parking is the only reason for vacancy in the Dickman building. We currently face bad economic times, for one. And there can be lots of other factors. We need a more open view.

Fran Fanara - Our job here is to allow the consultants come up with ideas or suggestions for parking solutions. And we'll decide what to implement.

Mark O'Bryan - Exactly. It's up to you to decide what to implement now, what later. Some of our suggestions may never be used.

Dave McCreery - Like from the business standpoint, reducing the number of bus stops means, "Will one of those two bus stops be in front of my business?"

Mark O'Bryan - Moving on to the study boundary See handout. We included 25 spaces on the west side of Grand so that the boundary is equidistant on both sides of Grand. This is going on the assumption that most visitors to the district won't park any further than 25 spots. And the questionnaire results concur with that.

Patrick - But in the residential parking statistics we looked at earlier go all the way to Spring.

Mark O'Bryan - The statistics are more to characterize the problem. They show us where the problems are. And finally the absorption and turnover issue. See handout. It's very difficult to get accurate and adequate data on absorption. We don't know where people are going. It's hard to keep track of how long people are staying in the district or how many businesses they're visiting, etc. A study of the small public parking lots would not yield useful results because they are too small to be very important in the overall scheme of things. Such a study would need to include observations of all of the side streets and all of the small parking lots in the area, and even then it is questionable that the data collected would be very useful to determine anything of value. It is much easier to study a single private suburban parking lot dedicated to a single business, this is where these studies are useful. An urban area is much more complicated than this.

Mary Lisa - Has the business district looked into shuttles to transport people from parking lots to their destinations?

Michelle - We have looked into this. The cost of insurance and operation was very high.

Brian - When will the Commerce lot be available?

Fran - We don't know yet. We'd hoped to start construction on our temporary building when the library moved (mid-May), but we've had a lot of delays with civil engineers from Ameren and MSD. When we have something, we'll go to the alderman and the residents to determine next steps.

Dave McCreery - The bottom line with the Commerce lot is that the people with the money make the deals. And if a developer with money comes along, they could snap that lot up and use it for something besides a parking lot. Then where would we be? It can't be our only solution.

There was discussion of the possibility of using the lot at the First Church of Divine Science (east side of Grand on Wyoming). Susan has spoken with them and they're unwilling to allow that. Fran suggested that liability is an important issue.

Paul - When we talk about creating parking lots, will they be public or private?

Michelle - That depends on who's paying for them.

Mark O'Bryan - A lot of who's paying for parking lots depends on the density of the business district. The more demand, the more we gain an ability to pay for structured parking.

Sheryl Foster reported on the questionnaire results. See the questionnaire results on the City's website

Michelle - One thing I'd like to make sure we recognize is that this questionnaire came to the businesses at a time when they just upped their self assessment, which creates funds for the Community Improvement District. Businesses might not have been felt they could realistically contribute to the cost of creating more parking.

Sheryl - Yes. I want to include that in the summary. It's very relevant. And also the fact that many of these are small businesses with small profit margins.

Mary Lisa - How many residents responded to the questionnaire?

Sheryl - 79.

Brian - Is that statistically significant?

Sheryl - The questionnaires were designed to help us characterize the way residents are thinking, to give us a thumbnail sketch of residents' general tendencies.

Michelle - But if there are about 800 households or units, that's about 10%, which is the response you expect from a direct mailing or distribution like this.

Mark O'Bryan - Regarding the last two items on the agenda (data & map analysis and forum planning) we aren't quite sure what you're referring to.

Emily - Well, those were items Dick & I talked about. It seems like we've covered the data and map analysis quite a bit in this meeting. The forum refers to the fact that at some point we're going to have to have a public meeting. Maybe you could give us an idea of what you envision for the remainder of the process.

Mark O'Bryan - I see the Steering Committee taking our suggested solutions back to the businesses and residents for feedback. It will be difficult without visual renderings, but I could put together an outline. Written feedback from the Steering Committee members and from residents and businesses will be especially helpful. We'll take that feedback and come up with our final suggestions, which we can present to the larger community.

Emily - Does this sound okay to everyone? If the Consulting team puts together an outline of their suggested solutions, can everyone take it back to their constituents for feedback? I think the best forum for residents is at the neighborhood meetings at the end of this month (September 24 for Tower Grove Heights and September 26 for Tower Grove East).

Susan - And since it's difficult to get businesses to meetings, I can distribute the outline and talk to people on the phone to get their feedback.

There was discussion about converting some of the questionnaire data to pie charts or more visual representations. However, we decided that would entail a lot of extra work and that the questionnaires (as they are in Sheryl's report) with the percentages behind each question would be adequate. Especially if that's available on a website.

Questions? Please contact Emily Andrews @ SLACO, 314-533-9104 x 205 or emlandrews@hotmail.com.