There's parking lots, parking decks and blocks of street parking in downtown Naperville. Yet over the next five years it is estimated the downtown area will need 800 to 1,000 new spaces.
Is this a positive sign or is downtown becoming too crowded for it's own good?
Downtown parking.. how many more spaces?
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Why should any city "cater" to commuters? You choose where you live and as a result need to commute. No one forced that situation on you.
It's insulting that the city refuses to cater to the Chicago train commuters.
After an 8-year-wait, thanks for the pass for a commuter parking spot located a half-mile away from the tracks. Howbout BUILDING A PROPER PARKING STRUCTURE NEAR THE ACTUAL TRAIN STATION?
PROVIDE ENOUGH SPOTS AND/OR GOVERN THE PERMIT PROCESS SO PASS-HORDERS CAN'T RUIN THE SYSTEM ANYMORE. THIS IS A RECORDING.
Ridiculous.
Buy the post office and make the lot into a one story parking lot, keep it for a future add on to the van buren deck at minimal cost.
Require the owners and employees to use the parking decks instead of the prime spots near the businesses.
Hands off the library!
I don't recall hearing about that. I did hear about "growing" downtown north of it's current boundary, but that doesn't involve any actual current development plans, as far as I know. In either case, if downtown expands into those areas, the city can and should require the developers to provide sufficient parking a la the Water Street project. As it is, I think the focus should be more on doing what it takes to reduce the number of vacancies in the downtown of today before they look to building the downtown of tomorrow.
JQP,
Did you miss the piece where the developers want to 'grow" downtown to the south.... i.e south of Aurora, east of Naperville settlement? All the way down to the cemetery?
Anyone living in the area west of Washington over to Naperville settlement better darn well be scared to death of the eminent domain powers given to cities for economic development. Your days are numbered.
And to add insult to injury the developers are going to create yet another TIF district... build high end homes and businesses in a mixed use district and laugh at the tax assessor and the SD for the next 20 years.
JQP-
That is exactly what I was thinking!
So we'll need 800-1000 more spaces within 5 years? Who makes up these numbers? How can anybody know how much parking demand will exist 5 years from now? I submit that Naperville might just need LESS spaces. True the train station parking lots are crowded, but in 10 years I've never had a problem parking downtown.
Why will so many more parking spaces be required downtown? What big developments are going up that will require all of these spaces?
The only problem with downtown parking right now is that it is often hard to find a space adjacent to the business one is patronizing. However, a space can virtually always be found in one of the parking structures. The people who complain about the parking situation probably never look in these structures. But short of replacing every other building with a surface lot or parking structure, nothing is going to take care of this "problem".
If you build it they will come.
But do we really need them? Should parking be sufficient to serve the needs of Naperville residents or should the taxes of Naperville residents be used to subsidize parking for downtown businesses and out-of-town shoppers?
Do all of the out-of-town shopper clearly and unequivocally generate more than enough sales tax dollars to be able to subsidize the cost of building parking decks, operate and maintain parking decks, and all of the other city services in the downtown area?
Or are we using public tax dollars to further subsidize and therefore make it easier for the downtown business community to enjoy more profit than similar competitors in other parts of town.
The downtown really is a mixed bag of unusual economic forces compared to the more even and level playing field that exists on the north, west, and south commercial areas around town.
Now that we have a car counting system in the existing downtown parking garages it will be interesting to follow the parking patterns after some data has been collected over a period of time. I'm pretty sure we are still going to see certain times and certain days when a lot of parking spaces are readily available and other days and times when parking is a bit tighter. I also think it is safe to say that any need for projected parking shortages will really exist only for certain limited time period on certain days. It would be almost impossible to have a corresponding parking shortage that was seemless across all days and time slots. That being the case it becomes a very good question as to whether or not we are financially able or if we have the desire to provide such expensive parking facilities knowing they will most likely only be used at capacity on certain days at certain times and will only further add to over capacity at all other times. IMO, it would be much more fiscally responsible and prudent to provide sufficient parking that meets the normal demand. Anything beyond normal demand becomes a speculative activity and should be handled by private venture parking facilities not public money.
Yet the commuter parking waiting list is many years long. And parking at the train station costs $480 per year - yet parking down the street downtown is free??? If those 1000 spaces were at the train station - the city could get 1/2 a million each year from it .
How much sales tax money has been generated from the VanBuren Lot per year?