QuoteThe proposal was considered to keep Adecco downtown
By David BauerleinStory updated at 12:44 AM on Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010
City officials have ruled out subsidizing employee parking in order to keep a major employer in the downtown.
Adecco Group, which recently purchased MPS Group, has said it is leaning toward moving 375 employees out of downtown.
Adecco Group hasn’t requested financial incentives from the city, but the possibility of losing its corporate presence in the heart of downtown triggered talks at the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission about what the city might do. The 35-story Modis Building is named after a subsidiary of MPS.
JEDC Executive Director Ron Barton on Wednesday told commissioners the cost of paying for employee parking can equate to an additional $2 to $3 per square foot in leasing costs compared with being in the suburbs. He said it’s not financially feasible for the city to cover that cost.
“I will tell you this â€" the city can’t write a check large enough,†Barton said at the JEDC’s monthly meeting.
He said the cost of parking is a financial consideration for other downtown employers. The city needs to work on better transit connections to less-expensive parking on the edge of downtown, he said.
According to a 2009 survey by Colliers International, Jacksonville’s parking rates ranked as the 18th lowest among 64 cities analyzed in North America.
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-03-11/story/jacksonville_finds_it_too_costly_to_pay_business%E2%80%99s_employee_parking_as_i
Why is the JEDC looking to pay for parking? Eola Capital who owns the building, unless the city now owns it, should offer this as an incentive for the tenants. If the owner is not willing to subsidize some money for parking, it looks as if downtown cannot compete, at all, even with City help, to keep large businesses downtown.
Sad, really very sad.
It was refreshing to hear him actually talk of better transit connections to Downtown! Commuter Rail anyone??
Just give em that ugly azz garage across the street and say "do whatever you want with this thing".
Seems a small price to pay. Considering.
Quote from: stephendare on March 11, 2010, 08:06:49 AM
Shhhh. Mtrain, you will only incite TUFSU to immediately come on and claim that any business with a strong business plan will simply not be affected by the issue of parking in downtown.
please don't mix retail and office...the cost of parking DOES affect daytime business downtown....but you have consistently noted the struggles of retail operating beyond the weekday....the problem with the parking argument for that is that there is little to no cost at night or on the weekend.
but you know what...I give in...let's go ahead and make free on-street parking downtown so retail can compete with the suburbs....while we're at it, why don't we just try to recreate the suburbs downtown...you know, build a mall (maybe with huge surface parking lots) and such....seems to have worked splendidly for the cities that did just that in the 1980s!
btw...here's some insight on free parking
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/02/23/want-to-foster-walking-biking-and-transit-you-need-good-parking-policy/
http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking/dp/1884829988
Well that would provide some incentive to park downtown would it not tufsu? Parking anywhere is an issue unless you use one of the high dollar parking garage's...........and if memory serves me, I believe the taxpayers paid,one way or the other for most of them?