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By Jorge Casuso
June 8 -- The pieces are finally falling into place
for an ambitious $180 million plan to add 1,700 parking spaces
Downtown over the next decade.
The major catalyst was the grand opening in March of the
new $29-million Civic Center parking structure, which puts
into place 882 spaces needed to start tearing down and replacing
the three small Downtown parking garages, City officials said.
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| Civic Center Parking
Structure |
Months earlier, the City purchased land on 5th Street Downtown,
laying the groundwork for a new parking structure to accommodate
the demand created when the surface lots at the Civic Center
are taken off line to make way for park space.
“We’re back on track, I’m happy to say,”
said City Manager Lamont Ewell. “The Civic Center parking
gives us the opportunity to take down certain parking garages.
“We’re looking at how to make that happen and
using the Civic Center lot as a backup,” Ewell said.
“We’re glad the process is picking up again. We’re
still committed to following the plan.”
Planning officials note that the plan, which was approved
by the Council five years ago, will be a work in progress.
“It’s kind of a domino thing, where we’re
making sure there’s replacement parking,” said
Ellen Gelbard, deputy director of Planning and Community Development.
“It’s something incremental that can always be
elaborated as we go.”
The opening of the Civic Center Parking Structure paves the
way for replacing the small Downtown garages.
The plan must strike a delicate balance – adding enough
parking in the bustling area to maintain the current ratio
of 2.1 spaces per 1,000 square feet of development, while
not encouraging additional motorists, City officials said.
“It’s a strategy to basically revitalize and
maintain the parking structures we have, which were built
in the sixties, but to try and balance it so we don’t
encourage people to drive,” Gelbard said.
The initial stages of the parking plan – which calls
for retrofitting and rehabbing the three large nine-story
structures flanking the Third Street Promenade and the two
structures at Santa Monica Place – have been quietly
humming along.
Work on the garages at the indoor mall, which total some
2,000 spaces, has been completed, as has the work on Structure
5, which has 664 spaces, said Tina Rodriguez, the City’s
redevelopment administrator.
“Someone is not going to prefer to park at the Civic
Center, because it’s more convenient,” Dyke acknowledged.
But, she added, “we can move monthly parkers to the
Civic… when the structures are torn down. I think they
could pay the same.”
The monthly parking rate is currently $82.50, significantly
cheaper than the rates at private parking facilities, though
the City is considering boosting the price, Dyke said.
The new Civic Center parking structure also can be used at
night and on weekends by Santa Monica Place employees, who
currently park at one of the mall’s two public parking
structures, City officials said. This would likely happen
when Santa Monica Place reopens after a major rehab slated
to take two years that will leave only Macy’s open during
construction.
“When the mall employees return, they can park at the
Civic Center at nights and on weekends,” Dyke said.
The Civic Center lot also could alleviate the holiday parking
crunch that mall officials currently address by leasing 279
spaces in public beach lots for employees during November
and December, the year’s busiest shopping months.
“What we need to be able to do is to more efficiently
incorporate the Civic Center into the system,” Dyke
said. “That’s where parking management makes a
difference. We’re busier, but it doesn’t seem
as busy, because we’re managing it better.”
The 500-space underground parking structure at the new Main
Library on 6th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard also will
be used during peak hours, City officials said.
“Our observation is that we have the highest parking
demand on weekends and weekend nights,” said Dyke. “Those
are nights when the library isn’t as full as it is midday,
mid-week.”
The parking rates at the library will be $3 at night and
on weekends, and the garage could be used by Downtown workers
who do not have monthly parking permits, Dyke said.
Structure 4, with 652 spaces, will be the next to be retrofitted
and rehabbed, with responses to a request for proposals expected
back by the end of May, Rodriguez said. The design work, she
added, is already done.
Construction work, however, could be held off until the end
of he holiday shopping season. “We may start working
on Structure 4 in the fall, but it might be better to wait
till January 8 to start work,” she said.
City officials have made sure there isn’t a shortage
of parking during construction work by taking out only a limited
number of spaces at a time, while keeping the structures open,
Rodriguez said.
“We usually put a condition in the contract that no
more than fifty to seventy-five spaces can be used as part
of the work,” Rodriguez said. “We work with the
contractor to make it less disruptive.” On some occasions,
contractors also have worked nights, she added.
In June, City staff will go to the city council for the design
review for parking structure 2, which has 633 spaces, and
design work should be completed in six months, Rodriguez said.
“We will have things designed by 2008,” she said.
“We hope that as soon as we finish 4, we can start on
2.”
After that, the major work of adding parking spaces will
begin, City officials said. “We are in a position now
to move this thing along,” said Lucy Dyke, the City’s
parking manager.
The three smaller five-story structures – 1, 3 and
6, which total less than 1,000 spaces – will be torn
down and replaced with larger structures that will add a total
of nearly 700 spaces.
“We’ll use the Civic Center garage to take the
pressure off Downtown,” said Dyke. “The Civic
Center garage is empty and will stay empty, because it has
to be a release valve when we take out those garages.
“If you’re going to go to the Downtown all day,
it’s probably worth it to pay $3 and walk a couple of
blocks,” she said.
An additional incentive will be the shuttle buses that will
take motorists from the library and Civic Center garages to
the Promenade. “This is one thing that can go ahead
in the short term,” Dyke said.
Meanwhile, the City already is making plans to tear down
Structure 1, the smallest of the five-story garages, with
312 spaces, City officials said.
“City staff is looking at how to make that happen and
using the Civic Center as a backup,” Ewell said.
But the Civic Center structure will not always be there to
alleviate the Downtown parking crunch, City officials cautioned.
It was built to pave the way for the development of the Civic
Center, which is mostly covered with surface parking lots.
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| Parking Structure 3,
3 p.m., Tuesday |
A plan approved by the City Council in June 2005 calls for
some 325 new housing units, approximately 13 acres of new
parks and an extension of Olympic Drive to Ocean Avenue. It
also includes an early childhood development center, an annex
to the Civic Auditorium and 100,000 square feet of additional
space for City services.
“When the surface lot is taken out, the structure will
no longer be available,” Gelbard said. “By that
time we’ll need a new structure in the 5th Street area.”
That should take place between the redevelopment of the second
and third small structures, she added.
To replace the spaces lost when motorists who currently park
on the Civic Center surface lots move to the new parking structure,
the City plans to construct at least one new structure on
land it recently purchased two blocks from the Promenade,
City officials said.
“We have negotiated certain land we purchased from
private owners that certainly would serve as possible future
sites,” Ewell said.
But new structures are not the only answer to Downtown’s
parking crunch. City parking officials are also turning to
technology. In November, the City launched a website that
displays the number of empty parking spaces in Downtown structures
and beach lots.
Updated every five seconds, the number of spaces available
at each location is projected onto a birds-eye view. of the
Downtown and beach areas. When the site is full, the rectangle
with the number of spaces turns red and reads “full.”
City officials also are preparing to launch a parking advisory
radio station to inform motorists on the street where parking
is available. The City is in the process of applying for a
grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
to pay for the “parking advisory system,” Dyke
said.
“We want to get the message out that it’s easy
to park here,” she said.
But the additional parking and new technology should not
detract from the goal of keeping the Downtown a walkable destination
that provides plenty of alternative transpiration, City officials
said.
Currently, as many people come Downtown by bus as they do
in cars, Dyke said. “People think everyone drives,”
she said. “The reality is many don’t.
“We need to maintain the incentives that keep the transit,
walkable, bicycling alternatives. We need to be careful not
to change the balance. We want to maintain a walkable Downtown.”
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