{"id":16988,"date":"2013-01-08T08:41:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T13:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=16988"},"modified":"2013-01-08T08:41:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T13:41:15","slug":"the-upcoming-parking-crisis-in-downtown-raleigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/city-journal\/2013\/01\/08\/the-upcoming-parking-crisis-in-downtown-raleigh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Upcoming Parking Crisis in Downtown Raleigh"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\n@page { margin: 0.79in }\n\t\tP { margin-bottom: 0.08in }\n\t\tA:link { color: #0000ff }\n\t\tA.ctl:link { font-family: \"Times New Roman\", serif }\n--><\/style>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">No other area of the city is as unique about its parking situation as downtown Raleigh. Contrary to what some think, there is a gross oversupply of parking spaces in and around the city\u2019s central business district.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the city and private developers responded to the increased attention that downtown was getting. Due to ongoing revitalization that went on during that time, more space was needed for workers and visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Since 1999, the city has built four decks to handle the projected demand. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Today, the city has a growing debt issue, in large part because parking was built based on plans that were scaled down or later canceled. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Optimism towards downtown,\u201d said city Parking Administrator Gordon Dash, is what led to our current oversupply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">For more than a year, the Raleigh Public Record has been following <\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/news\/city-council\/2011\/04\/29\/city-grappling-with-1-4-million-parking-shortfall\/\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">the growing parking debt<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">, now in the millions of dollars, that the city faces because of losses in revenue.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_16989\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16989\" alt=\"The Wake County parking deck off McDowell Street. \" src=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/parking-600x398.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Leo Suarez <\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Wake County parking deck off McDowell Street. Photo by Leo Suarez.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201c<span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">If the city can\u2019t come up with a plan to increase revenue, future years could look just as bleak with a $13 million shortfall predicted for 2015,\u201d wrote Ariella Monti, a Record reporter.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">So while City Council members discuss alternatives \u2014 including <\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/news\/city-council\/2011\/05\/28\/city-committee-hopes-ads-shore-up-ailing-parking-revenue\/\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">a possible ad revenue plan<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\"> \u2014there is not much being done to prevent this from happening again once the city digs itself out of the debt hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">We\u2019re not building any new decks for the next five to 10 years,\u201d Dash said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">The city isn\u2019t the only one providing parking. The state, the county and private property owners have all built lots and decks downtown in the last decade as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Each party has built parking in response to their own projects\u2019 needs. For example, the Wake County Justice center has an 1,160-parking-space deck and the Nature Research Center is next to a nine-story deck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">We, the citizens of North Carolina, continue to pile on the parking spaces in an area that not only doesn\u2019t need them but already has too much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">The problem I see on the horizon could be from the lost opportunity among our governments with offices in downtown Raleigh. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Let\u2019s take a look at the new Wake County Justice Center, nearly complete on Salisbury Street.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">The new facility is supported by an 1,160 space deck on McDowell Street, according to <\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wakegov.com\/projects\/current\/justice\/pages\/default.aspx\"><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">the project website<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">. After walking around the area to get a feel of the county&#8217;s new project, I used online maps to estimate the distance between the parking deck\u2019s pedestrian exits and the Justice Center\u2019s nearest entrance. The walk is about 0.2 miles.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_17003\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 600px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-17003\" alt=\"parking map\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/parking_map1-600x353.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"353\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Leo Suarez <\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map demonstrates the walking distance from the Wake County Parking Deck (shown in red). It is about the same distance to the Blount Street Deck or the Moore Square Deck (both shown in blue).<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">To be fair, the county built its deck in preparation for the future growth of the county. But they could be repeating the same \u201coptimistic\u201d mistake the city made.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">I floated my idea to Dash and he liked it; however, he said to his knowledge, no one is thinking of ideas like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">Some private developers seem to be, however. The now-open Hampton Inn in Glenwood South, with more than 120 rooms, is leasing parking from a deck across the street. A possible Residence Inn hotel may lease spaces from a city-owned deck on Salisbury Street.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia,serif;\">The hope is that as the economy turns around and downtown Raleigh lands more businesses, the revenue will return and the debt paid off. Until then, all I can suggest is to \u201cPark Local.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s no shortage of parking in downtown Raleigh. In fact, there\u2019s a huge oversupply. The city bet on parking growth in downtown and now faces a mounting debt for the construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24055,"featured_media":16989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1098],"tags":[347,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24055"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}