Park it Where?

IT'S A BIG DEAL to be named Employee of the Month. San Diego Magazine’s winners are recognized in front of peers. They also get a small prize. But arguably most important, the employee of the month gets a parking space in the small lot adjacent to our downtown office. Just for 30 days, though. After that, it’s back to the asphalt jungle.

Our staff gets $160-per-month parking stipends. That pretty much covers the cost of surface lots roughly three to four blocks from our Little Italy workplace. But none of us is immune to gallows humor. Asked once where he parks his car, upbeat coworker Tim Fitzpatrick dryly replied, “Feels like somewhere near Egypt.”

Our 40-person team is a small part of the 75,000-strong downtown workforce. Add to that throng 30,000 residents in the 92101 ZIP code. Then divide that total by roughly 50,000 available parking spaces. Even if an estimated 20 percent of workers use public transportation, the math doesn’t neatly add up.

Parking fixes always land high on the Centre City Development Corporation’s “to-do” list. “It ranks right up there with affordable housing, safety and parks creation,” says CCDC spokesman Derek Danziger.

The issue roils downtown condominium residents who may have adequate spaces for themselves but don’t have a place for guests to park. It’s a bane to workers who don’t have building-dedicated parking spots. And suburban visitors, shoppers and errand-runners just can’t get past the notion that a curbside space won’t always exist right in front of their destination.

“It’s a challenge,” says Danziger. “You can never build enough parking to fill the demand of everyone who wants to come downtown. The city can’t be efficient if everybody is going to rely on the single-car method. Sure, we have to build enough supply to satisfy as many people as possible. But we really have to work on public transportation.”

We all know that’s an uphill battle in car-crazy Southern California. So while downtown continues to see surface parking lots replaced by condos, the problem only gets worse. The call for creative solutions is getting louder.

RESTAURATEUR ALEX THAO is frustrated by the dearth of parking in the Gaslamp Quarter. “People come in late for their reservations—because they’ve been driving around looking for parking,” says Thao, who owns Thai eatery Rama, on Fourth Avenue in the Gaslamp. “And people are always complaining about the price of parking. It’s not the best way to start your meal.”

So I reveal my own creative brainstorm to Thao: a food-service chain with massive, multilevel underground parking lots. We’d call the chain Parkers Restaurants, and label them “urban drive-ins.” If you park in the subterranean lot and eat a full meal upstairs, you park for free. I’m still working on the details of how many hours of free parking you get (two hours for every entrée?). But the vision includes workers at the lot entrances holding walkie-talkies. If one Parkers lot is full, friendly attendants call to another Parkers location to see if space is available there.

Thao isn’t ready to invest just yet. The cost of digging a hole in the city of San Diego is astronomical. That’s a primary reason more underground lots don’t exist. The cost of buying land pays back better by building a condo, not a parking lot.

But when my half-serious scenario is passed on to CCDC’s Danziger, he doesn’t laugh. He points to the recently passed San Diego Downtown Community Plan. A major need addressed in the plan is creation of green spaces and public parks. Concurrently, the city will look at building parking lots one or two levels below some yet-to-be-planted green spaces.

“We’ll see if that’s feasible,” says Danziger. “One way or another, in the next 12 to 18 months, we’ll be doing a comprehensive parking study.”

Rather than deride my Parkers plan, Danziger points to another idea somewhat similarly out-of-the-box: the Padres Parkade at 10th Avenue and J Street. Proximal to Petco Park, it includes more than 1,100 public spaces. The unique aspect of the Padres Parkade is that it’s being wrapped by a residential project called Fahrenheit.

“The space is being creatively used,” says Danziger. “After a while, only a small portion of the Padres Parkade will be visible.”

NOT FAR FROM THE PADRES PARKADE is a 280-space surface lot (bounded by Eighth and Ninth avenues and B and C streets) managed by Five Star Parking. The company runs 41 locations and oversees 11,000 stalls in San Diego. But at this East Village location, they are pondering going skyward by erecting two more levels. That could increase occupancy by 500 stalls.

“We’re seeing if it pencils out to put up a temporary metal structure with two to three levels,” says Five Star operations manager Steve Simmons. “It would be something we could erect and take down. We’re in a preliminary phase right now.”

Simmons says the metal structure would be completely safe. Construction would not include a concrete pour. Five Star manages, but does not own, the block; ergo, the site will likely be developed for condos in the not-so-distant future—just as adjacent blocks used for parking were recently approved for condos and apartments (the Vantage Point and Mondrian projects).

One more parking ebb in the condo flow.

“PEOPLE DON’T LIKE TO PARK in garages,” says Five Star’s Simmons. “It’s more difficult getting in and out quickly. And I think females worry about being closed in” and potentially in harm’s way from ne’er-do-wells.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, a UCLA study of cities around the world shows that up to 30 percent of downtown traffic gridlock is a result of drivers circling around looking for curbside parking.

“I don’t think it’s that high in San Diego,” says CCDC vice president and chief financial officer Frank Alessi, a veteran of the downtown parking conundrum. Alessi does believe one positive step by commuters would be better utilization of metered spots in East Village. That, however, would require an education process—particularly in getting drivers to walk a few more blocks from the East Village to more likely commercial destinations in the Gaslamp Quarter.

Alessi points to a pair of metered parking experiments ongoing or about to start. The Green-Top Meter pilot program exists in the Cortez, East Village, Little Italy and Marina neighborhoods. The study areas are small (go to ccdc.com for locations). But meters in the study offer a variety of time and fee options. The goal: See if granting four-hour parking for 75 cents, or nine-hour parking for 50 cents, is a lure to use less desirable metered locations. For the past two years, it’s cost $1.25 for an hour of downtown parking, with two hours the maximum time allowed.

Another soon-to-be-implemented, technology-based program examines the need for parking meters versus block-by-block kiosks that would accept credit cards, as well as track parking space usage. Alessi says this and the Green-Top experiment are expected to conclude by the end of 2006.

Superficial solutions? Perhaps. Keep a bottle of aspirin in the glove compartment. But every step taken toward saving space for parking is a vital necessity.

Five Star Parking is testing an online reservation system (longtermparking.com) at its Lee Court lot near the airport. Ace Parking (aceparking.com) allows drivers to reserve spaces in the Trolley Station/MTS Garage at 11th and Imperial for Padres games. A Padres schedule is on Ace’s Web site. Click on the game date and pay $16.50 to reserve a space.

The city council currently requires new residential projects to have at least one parking spot per unit. Upscale projects usually offer one space per bedroom. There is a strong—hopefully strong enough—push to have the council require a higher parking minimum, perhaps one and a half spaces per unit.

CCDC could do a better job promoting the special-permits program available in city-built lots. Permits in 500-space Park It On Market are sold out. But at the 1,000-stall Sixth and K Parkade, commuters can buy special permits that fit their work hours. A 3 p.m.–to–3 a.m. permit (ideal for nighttime bar and restaurant employees) is $85 per month. A 6 a.m.–to–7 p.m. weekday permit is $80 per month. For more information, call 619-232-1271.

If complaints about downtown parking are going to go away, it’s not going to be overnight. Downtown drivers and public agencies will have to compromise. If not, well, some of us will have to focus on being employee of the month as often as possible.

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