by Dustin Brackney in Development and Zoning, Union Square
Posted on April 12, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Last Modified on April 13, 2011 at 8:56 pm
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As the plan slowly creeps forward to the urban infill project in Union Square, residents, business owners and visitors are going to have an exceedingly hard time finding parking in and around the area. It is clear that some kind of solution must be found to address this problem. In talks about the solution, I have not seen any discussion about a parking garage. Currently, behind Citizens Bank in Union Square there is a parking lot that is large enough to host a parking garage. It is owned by Citizens Bank. My proposal to build a parking structure could help alleviate a couple of problems: parking and open space. Putting a 4 story lot there would provide an estimated 120 parking spaces and offer the potential for a park on top of the structure that could provide much needed space in the square. Additionally, the easily monitor-able roof access could host a sculpture park expanding on Somerville’s mission to promote the arts.
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Um… A parking garage is exactly what the city has planned for that property. http://postsomerville.com/2010/09/21/businesses-urge-caution-after-city-unveils-development-plan/
I like the park/sculpture garden idea though.
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Really? OK Paul, it seems you are more up on the current plans than I am. Now how do we encourage the park and living walls?
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Talk to your alderman, maybe… also if Tufts has an architecture school I bet you could get a kid to sketch up what the park would look like. A drawing would help build community interest, as well as make it more likely that the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development would seriously consider it.
I hope it catches on. It’s a pretty clever idea for making a potential eyesore into something that would actually be something of an attraction itself.
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Parking garages represent the urban planning ideas of the 1950s. Witness the West End and Government Center. These are hardly the jewels of Boston, and I don’t think that Somerville should be aspiring to this. How ironic that just as rapid transit is about to move in, we should feel the need to create this kind of out-dated blight.
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I am open to other ideas of providing the necessary spaces in this dense urban neighborhood. Just as buildings have changed significantly since the 1950′s so has the idea of what a parking garage can be. Like I had mentioned a park on top and living walls on the side are just a couple of ideas. Suddenly the space becomes an amenity.
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If we’re still stuck with the transportation infrastructure of the 50s, then it makes no sense to plan as if we’re not. The Green Line will go to and from BOSTON; everyone else will still have to drive to get to Union. If we want to support economic development in Union, there has to be somewhere for shoppers to park. If we just want it to remain as it is, or worse have it turn into a transit hub development like Wellington, we can safely ignore parking. .
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I don’t understand this comment. The Green Line coming to Union Square means that we are doing the opposite of 1950s style planning, which is exactly when the trolleys were removed.
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A parking garage may be needed some day, but there are a number of steps that should be taken before a garage is built:
1. Price the parking spaces that are there now to encourage some vacancy. This would price the prime spots above the farther away spots. Employees and long term parking would be in the less desirable spots. Right now there is not a single economic reason why an employee shouldn’t take the best possible parking space.
By pricing farther away spots less (possibly even free), cost conscious people will park further away.
2. Establish what the peak price is for parking that you think customers would be willing to pay/ that would be fair for Union Square. Would the revenue at such a price support a parking garage?
I for one don’t want to see any of my tax money go to support a subsidized parking garage any where in Somerville.
The starting point for garage parking in Boston is $20,000 per parking space. Monetize this at a mortgage at 6% and this would be $140 per month. In other words until parking is at $140 a month, the revenue can not support building a parking space.
3. We should be investing in cheaper ways of getting people to and from Union Square than parking. Parking revenues from existing parking can help pay for this. In a purely economic model you would be willing to pay up to $20,000 to encourage people to walk, bike, carpool or take transit to avoid building one new parking space.
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Mark, I can tell that you are truly averse to the idea of a parking garage and think that under no circumstances can the structure be an amenity. In your argument you quoted Boston prices where real estate values are much higher. However, if that was the case, the garage would still pay for itself. At a rate of a very low $2/hr, a parking spot filled 3 hours a day would generate $6 per day or $180 per month.
Then there is the possibility for the garage to create open space on top and grow plants (maybe even food) on its sides, which you have not discussed. It is all about designing the structure so that it is not an eyesore.
Luckily the location of the proposed garage is also tucked away so that very few people would be visually effected. There would be 3 residences and Goodyear Tire employees that would have to look at it on a constant basis.
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if you want to build the garage yourself, more power to you… but unless on street rates are at least $3 an hour (now they are $1), not enough people will want to park there for you to break even.
A garage in Saint Augustine Florida was built by the City because they had a “parking problem”. After it was built, very few people parked there until they raised on street rates. Then once they raised on street, they drove enough people to other modes of transportation so that they found the garage was never needed in the first place.
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I also want to add that parking is definitely an amenity. And I absolutely think that parking should be built some day if demand warrants it.
I just think there’s enough parking in Union Square at $2 an hour already– but we won’t know that unless the City raises rates.
Down the road developers (including the parcel you specify) can build a garage if it’s needed at their expense.
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Given the negative externalities associated with parking garages, perhaps we should not just refrain from subsidizing them, as Mark argues, but we should also tax them.
Are there parking garages in Davis Square? There certainly are in Alewife. Do we want Union Square to be more like Davis Square or Alewife? I vote for Davis Square.
I am not convinced by the utopian parking garage argument. What public roof gardens exist now in New England that people actually enjoy and visit with any frequency? There is a roof garden in the Cambridge Center complex in Kendall Square, but few visit it. Roof gardens, in my experience, are windy, dry, and unlovely in this climate. Surely it is more important to create ground-level green spaces that are comfortable and obvious, and not overwhelmed by car traffic and other form of visual urban blight, like parking garages.
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