Last week the N&O ran an article about the excess of parking available downtown, “Parking is here, but cars are not”. The point is that many people, particularly those who work downtown, take up the free on-street parking and avoid the parking decks. Given the number of new parking decks recently added or planned, most decks are under utilized.
But no new parking decks are planned for the city’s premier entertainment district of Glenwood South, where finding a place to park has never been easy. And the parking problem will likely get much worse with the planned hotel to be built on the northeast corner of Glenwood Avenue and West Johnson Street. The owners of the planned 160 room hotel are expected to take up to a third of the currently available spaces at the only large public deck in the area.
A solution is needed before the problem gets much worse, as five more restaurants are coming to the area, including the recently announced Diner, another pizza restaurant called Bada Bing, and a collection of three restaurants at 500 Glenwood Avenue.
And, we can expect the pressure on available parking to continue increasing as the economy and consumer confidence improves for the existing 35 establishments and as tenants are found for the available retail space in the 222 Glenwood and West buildings.
New parking standards, championed by local restaurant owners, severely reduces the number of parking spaces that future restaurant and retail developers will need to include in their site plans. In most cases, not requiring these establishments to provide any parking at all for patrons. The city’s intent to encourage people to use mass transit or simply leave their cars at home is simply not realistic when these options remain out of reach to the vast majority of people who frequent the retail establishments in Glenwood South.
What do you think about the parking situation in Glenwood South? We welcome your comments.
