Surface Parking Lots: A Downtown Vibrancy Killer

[thelakelander]

No need to go as far north as Chicago.  Uptown Charlotte was a mess in the 1970s and 80s.  It still has its fair share of surface lots today but a good amount has been utilized for new infill development over the last 20 years.

[exnewsman]

If the owners of these lots would only take care of them - maybe do some landscaping or soemthing to make them a little more appealing then it wouldn't be quite as bad. But most look awful. But they won't. No incentive to beautify. They'll do as little as possible and will only care about the money they bring in, not how it affects the overall look of our city.

[AFCassidy]

Completely agree with exnewsman.  The abandoned and trashed concrete "parking" lots are more the problem then a true excess of surface parking spots.  They look like the "forbidden zone" in a sci-fi movie.  I wouldn't park my car in most of the random lots scattered around downtown because they're often filled with debris and homeless people.  Seems like a good chance of catching a nail in my tire or having someone try to break in.

Nice, clean surface parking is a nice feature to have for residential buildings and businesses.  Folks who live downtown want to be able to access their vehicles quickly and often wind up driving to other parts of the city daily or at least mutliple times per week.  And visitors like the ability to park without having to deal with a garage.  This is Jacksonville, after all.

[thelakelander]

Visually improving those blighted lots will make it easier to drive by them but it won't encourage walkability and vibrancy.  As long as your pedestrian zone is littered with surface parking, you'll struggle with walkability no matter what the condition of that surface parking is.  Case in point, even at SJTC you'll struggle to see a steady stream of people strolling the sidewalks on the northside of the center.  However, you'll discover tons of people walking in the section where retail buildings line both sides of the street and interact with the sidewalk at a pedestrian scale level.  Btw, this isn't just a Jacksonville thing.  It's a part of human nature.

[malseedj]

One basic thing overlooked by this "Parking Lot" study is that it seems that all vacant land is considered a "Parking Lot" even if the fence around the lot is securely locked all the time.  Old buildings are just that "Old Buildings".  Owners do not just demolish an asset. They look at the cost on what is known to professionals, and not those who seem to post on this board, is "Repair, Rehabilitate or Replace.  I am tired of want to be posters who are not owners posting such trite.

If we can get enough useable space in the core we may be able to redevelop.  The problem is simple economics as well as lifestyle.  Why would a major firm subject its employees to the task of working downtown when cheap and available development is easy to accomplish on the Southside. 

Next look at employee skill sets in the immediate commuting area.  That is a no brainier literally!

[thelakelander]

Regardless of however we want to spin things or discuss how we got to where we are today, the end result is still the same.  An abundance of surface parking kills walkability, flat and simple.  This is just as true in NYC, Chicago and San Francisco as it is in Houston, Tucson and Jacksonville.  If we want a pedestrian friendly downtown, we're going to have to find a way to overcome it.

[ChriswUfGator]

One basic thing overlooked by this "Parking Lot" study is that it seems that all vacant land is considered a "Parking Lot" even if the fence around the lot is securely locked all the time.  Old buildings are just that "Old Buildings".  Owners do not just demolish an asset. They look at the cost on what is known to professionals, and not those who seem to post on this board, is "Repair, Rehabilitate or Replace.  I am tired of want to be posters who are not owners posting such trite.

If we can get enough useable space in the core we may be able to redevelop.  The problem is simple economics as well as lifestyle.  Why would a major firm subject its employees to the task of working downtown when cheap and available development is easy to accomplish on the Southside. 

Next look at employee skill sets in the immediate commuting area.  That is a no brainier literally!

Your whole viewpoint on this issue is exactly what originally created the problems you now point out.

And yes, many owners did simply demolish assets downtown, often due to nonsensical tax valuations, and other times in anticipation of redevelopment projects that have about a 2% chance of ever appearing locally. The entire western half of downtown was demolished in the 80s and 90s for a redevelopment project that fell through, and to this day sits vacant.

I'm having trouble understanding your view, and why more of the same will somehow now fix it?

[malseedj]

Chris

Its called Econ 101.

John

[thelakelander]

So what's the difference between Econ 101 in Jacksonville and nearly every other city in the United States?

[fieldafm]

Owners do not just demolish an asset. They look at the cost on what is known to professionals, and not those who seem to post on this board, is "Repair, Rehabilitate or Replace.  I am tired of want to be posters who are not owners posting such trite.

The market is not always rational... that's Econ 101.

Speculation and backward economic incentives played a huge part in the state of downtown today.  For example, an owner of a buidling can look at an older vacant building they bought cheaply next to the courhouse that was bundled with other properties as part of a tax lien sale... decide its easier to tear it down and just pay taxes on the lot(supremely cheaper than paying taxes on a building and also carrying the liability if someone gets injured and paying insurance on the property), have a nominal revenue stream from 'parking operations' and help their tax returns wash it all out from the depreciation.  What has that created for downtown?

Meanwhile, they hope they can flip that property someday to a developer that is getting all kinds of government money for a big pie in the sky project like Landmar, Kuhn, etc that will buy the land at a huge profit from the current owner.

Is that rational?  Does that create the most utility for a given property in a commercial district?  Sometimes, you need to change your incentives for behavior to change. 

[AFCassidy]

Lakelander, my point is that what is being called an overabundance of surface parking is really an overabundance of junky, abandoned lots.  They're not really parking... no one really parks in them.  They're just empty lots that look like "the forbidden zone" from a zombie movie.

Having a reasonable amount of surface parking helps downtown.  If we had scattered surface lots next to businesses and eliminated all the wasteland areas that map would be a lot less red. 

As an example, earlier today I walked down to my car, which is parked in the lot next to my building, and drove over to the Burrito Gallery to get takeout for dinner.  Would have walked, but it's 102 degrees out and a good 6 blocks away. 

If Burrito Gallery didn't have an adjacent parking lot, I would have gone somewhere else. 

[ChriswUfGator]

Lakelander, my point is that what is being called an overabundance of surface parking is really an overabundance of junky, abandoned lots.  They're not really parking... no one really parks in them.  They're just empty lots that look like "the forbidden zone" from a zombie movie.

Having a reasonable amount of surface parking helps downtown.  If we had scattered surface lots next to businesses and eliminated all the wasteland areas that map would be a lot less red. 

As an example, earlier today I walked down to my car, which is parked in the lot next to my building, and drove over to the Burrito Gallery to get takeout for dinner.  Would have walked, but it's 102 degrees out and a good 6 blocks away. 

If Burrito Gallery didn't have an adjacent parking lot, I would have gone somewhere else. 

That evidence doesn't support the conclusion you're drawing. The fact that you drove more reflects that we have so few restaurants open downtown that you would have had to walk 6 blocks to get a burrito, and that our public transit system is so poorly designed and managed that using it didn't even cross your mind because you didn't have 3 hours to spend going the 6 blocks, not that surface parking is any great thing to have downtown. In a vibrant city, none of this would have been an issue. In, say, Boston, you wouldn't have found yourself reaching so quickly for the car keys.

[thelakelander]

Of course it doesn't support it because his analysis of the situation overlooks several critical infrastructure components of a vibrant downtown scene.  First, imagine sidewalks being lined with shade trees and awnings.  So much for the negatives of walking on hot days.

Greenville, SC:





Second, imagine a downtown streetscape where buildings actively engage the pedestrian at street level.  Those walks seem much shorter.

Downtown Deland, FL:



Third, add some density to it (instead of surface parking lots), and you'll find yourself probably not having to walk six blocks because you'll have another viable option nearby.

Center City Philly:


In short, we've failed in providing the basics if we're at the point to where people feel they have to drive (instead of walk) in the heart of the Northbank to travel six measly blocks.

[AFCassidy]

My comment was based on today's downtown and not an imaginary future Jacksonville. 

Center City Philadelphia couldn't be any more different from Downtown Jacksonville.

I mean, I could take it one step further and say that the way to build an awesome, vibrant downtown is to fill all these parking lots up with skyscrapers and tourist attractions and then build an urban transit system to connect it all.  Done.

My point was that parking right now should not be the enemy, particularly when we have very few people actually living in Downtown Jacksonville and most businesses rely on visitors from other parts of town.  Sure, all these other things would be wonderful - shady tree-lined drives full of busy businesses and full office buildings and a fully-connected transportation system that works.  And maybe someday downtown will evolve into that.  I hope that it does.  But as you well know, transforming an area isn't an overnight process.  The evolution you describe would take years if not decades and cost millions upon millions in public money that we don't have right now...

Being realistic and returning to the point of this article, the problem is that downtown Jacksonville has is too many empty and abandoned lots and not too many parking lots.  That red on the map is mostly made up of wasteland zones that no one would feel safe parking a car on.  Does anyone actually disagree with this point I've been trying to make?

That's all my point has been.  People wag their fingers and roll their eyes about downtown having "too much" parking when the reality is that most of it isn't real parking and isn't even in a place where it could be useful as parking even if the lots weren't covered with rocks, bits of scrap metal and dirty needles.  What's worse is that when so-called downtown advocates complain about excessive parking downtown, they lose people's support who live in the rest of the city and who don't feel like easy in-and-out access to downtown is such a bad thing.  The real point of this article isn't parking - it's vacant, abandoned and junky looking lots.   

[thelakelander]

The map consists of both because they both equally create dead zones at pedestrian level.  However, the majority of those dirt lots are parked on, on a regular basis.  Here are a few for proof:













The downtown today is a very sick one and the abundance of surface parking lots (both unpaved and paved) are one of the huge reasons for that condition.  If we want it to be vibrant again, reducing the number and strengthening pedestrian level connectivity is going to have to happen.    If not, we might as well admit defeat, pack up and leave because there are no real life examples of vibrant downtowns with more surface parking than buildings at street level.  There's no proof that we can be the first.  That's the basic point of the article.  Unfortunately for Jax, that's about as realistic as it gets.

Btw, DT currently has about twice as many available parking spaces as people.  Ever person could drive two cars down here and manage to find a space for both.  Its not going to hurt the area if the majority of surface lots are replaced with infill development over time.