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   Downtown Parking Implementation Study Presentation

   discussed

   Consultants from the Genesis Group (Bruce Kastrich and Mr. Fleeman) presented findings and recommendations from a downtown parking implementation study, covering regulatory strategies (parking ratios, shared parking, in-lieu-of fees, standardization of space sizes), technology considerations (ride-sharing, autonomous vehicles, parking apps), and special event solutions (valet, satellite lots with shuttles). The presentation was informational; no formal action was taken.

   🏢Disney🏢Genesis Group🏢Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE)🏢Lyft🏢ULI🏢Uber👤Bruce Kastrich👤Councilman Altman👤Councilman Murphy👤Debbie Manz👤Mr. Fleeman👤Robert#Downtown Parking Implementation Study#Downtown Parking Utilization Study#In-lieu-of parking fee#Main Street parking#Satellite/remote parking lots#Shared parking agreements#Valet parking for special events

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   [00:00:13] Ms. Manz, take it away. [00:00:14] Thank you, Mr. Mayor. [00:00:16] Wanted to start by just providing you [00:00:18] a little bit of background information, [00:00:21] particularly for Councilman Altman and Councilman Murphy, [00:00:26] who weren't here in the end of 2017 [00:00:30] when the Genesis Group presented us with a downtown parking [00:00:34] utilization study. [00:00:36] At that time, an inventory was taken of parking spaces, [00:00:42] and we also took counts on the use of parking [00:00:50] spaces in the downtown. [00:00:52] And based on several factors, the findings [00:00:56] were that we could create and put [00:00:58] use to some additional parking spaces in our downtown area. [00:01:03] So the second part of their work for us [00:01:06] was to identify some strategies and a framework within which we [00:01:11] could create some additional parking. [00:01:14] And so they've come up with some recommendations for us. [00:01:19] For the benefit of Councilman Murphy, [00:01:21] I'll allow Bruce Kasich, you can introduce yourself, [00:01:28] and Mr. Fleeman as well. [00:01:32] And I'm going to allow them, unless you've [00:01:35] got some comments, Robert, to jump into their PowerPoint [00:01:38] presentation. [00:01:39] No, I'm going to let him take over right now. [00:01:41] All right, we'll let him take over. [00:01:44] Bruce Kastrich. [00:01:45] Pleasure, good to meet you. [00:01:47] Welcome. [00:01:47] Thank you. [00:01:48] Thank you. [00:01:50] As the city manager, Ms. Manns, was just indicating, [00:01:53] we had first started with the utilization study [00:01:57] for the downtown. [00:01:58] And in essence, OK, which one do I go? [00:02:02] The one to the right. [00:02:05] Do I point out anything? [00:02:06] Or? [00:02:10] Oops. [00:02:11] Well, oops. [00:02:12] How about, can we go back? [00:02:14] The one to the left. [00:02:15] The one to the left. [00:02:16] The other one. [00:02:16] The other left. [00:02:17] The other right, yeah. [00:02:20] Stage left. [00:02:20] There we go. [00:02:21] Thank you. [00:02:22] And we had presented a utilization study. [00:02:25] And tonight, what we're going to basically talk about [00:02:27] is the four topics, one of them being, [00:02:30] to just real quickly remind of what the study area was [00:02:33] and what the results were real quickly. [00:02:35] Second is, we looked at, as Ms. Manns was indicating, [00:02:39] we had looked at a couple of different strategies, which [00:02:42] how to improve parking for the downtown, which [00:02:44] includes a regulatory component, and then [00:02:47] also physical components that could also be done. [00:02:50] And then also, I know one of the topics [00:02:52] that had come up during November in our last presentation [00:02:55] was, of course, dealing with special events [00:02:57] and how to look at those components. [00:03:02] So the study area, just a quick reminder, [00:03:04] this is what we, back in November, looked at. [00:03:06] We had divided the area into different sub-areas [00:03:08] for the study. [00:03:10] We had looked at Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Wednesday. [00:03:14] Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. [00:03:15] Thank you. [00:03:15] Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. [00:03:16] And also a Saturday component, just [00:03:19] to kind of get to see what the utilizations were, [00:03:21] both in 10 AM, 2 PM, and then on a Saturday, [00:03:24] as we looked at a morning and an evening utilization. [00:03:28] And really, what the bottom line result was, [00:03:30] just to pull up my handy dandy cool laser, [00:03:36] is that the primary areas, and really probably no surprise, [00:03:39] was that the area behind the lot behind the theater [00:03:43] is highest utilized, as well as, of course, around City Hall [00:03:46] and the library and so forth, were really [00:03:49] the highest utilized areas on a continuous basis [00:03:54] throughout the whole entire thing. [00:03:55] So one of the first areas that we looked at was, again, [00:03:57] what could we start looking at from a regulatory perspective [00:04:02] in looking at the code and what some of the other techniques [00:04:04] that are going on out there related to codes? [00:04:08] And one of the first things is, when [00:04:10] you look at parking ratios, and one of the conversations [00:04:15] we had with staff was just kind of going back and forth [00:04:17] on the concept of the goals of downtown [00:04:20] and trying to make sure we preserve the character [00:04:22] of the Main Street and so forth, and character of downtown. [00:04:25] And so looking at that was, of course, [00:04:28] one of the underlying goals of how [00:04:30] do we incorporate more, maybe, creative parking regulations. [00:04:35] And if you look back at old ITE, ITE [00:04:38] stands for the Institute of Transportation Engineers. [00:04:41] They've been doing studies for years around the country. [00:04:43] They always publish a book. [00:04:45] I think they're still on seventh edition is what they use. [00:04:48] But the reality of ITE is that they typically [00:04:51] look at a single use, a restaurant that's [00:04:53] on a standalone parcel, or retail use, [00:04:57] and so forth, and an office building, [00:04:58] and different size office buildings. [00:05:00] But they really never look at a mixture of uses, [00:05:03] or even in a historical context. [00:05:05] So most codes, and again, just that's the way it was, [00:05:08] most codes were written based upon utilizing ITE rates [00:05:12] from way back when. [00:05:14] The others was, then we started looking at going, [00:05:15] okay, is that really the best way to look at things? [00:05:19] And is there a better way that we can start [00:05:21] coming up with ratios that the city started looking at [00:05:24] that would encourage the reuse of existing buildings, [00:05:28] recognizing that there is limitations on land [00:05:33] in where to put parking. [00:05:35] Which then, again, through the discussions [00:05:40] was that the goal is to, of course, [00:05:42] encourage more revitalization of the downtown, [00:05:44] don't want to lose the character of the downtown. [00:05:47] So we started looking at, start considering [00:05:50] the blend of uses that are in the downtown, [00:05:52] their shared parking, and so forth, [00:05:54] that goes with that, along with the increased utilization [00:05:56] of bicycles, as well as pedestrian. [00:05:58] One of the discussions that came out [00:06:02] was that if you could encourage people [00:06:04] to walk and have environments that are encouraging [00:06:08] for walking, people are willing to walk, [00:06:10] park a little bit farther, and go to, [00:06:13] and enjoy, and hopefully, part of the idea [00:06:17] is to get people walking by the storefronts [00:06:19] and so forth of the downtown. [00:06:23] We looked in, just bear with me a second here, [00:06:27] as I jump forward. [00:06:31] One of the parking standards. [00:06:34] The city code, interesting, is it's word currently written, [00:06:38] bases parking lot sizes on square foot. [00:06:43] There's really no written dimension [00:06:46] of a size of a parking space. [00:06:47] It's based upon the amount of square feet. [00:06:48] Same thing with drive aisles. [00:06:51] And through that, the reason that's of interest [00:06:55] is that while we are doing our field work, [00:06:57] we are out there measuring parking spaces. [00:06:59] And there's a lot of inconsistency in the size of spaces, [00:07:02] because again, people are trying to be creative [00:07:04] with the different square footages, [00:07:07] but as a result of that, you do get [00:07:08] a lot of inconsistency of spaces. [00:07:10] And one of the thoughts was maybe there should be [00:07:14] some sort of standardization of parking space sizes, [00:07:16] drive aisles, maybe encourage compact spaces, [00:07:19] and so forth that are current techniques [00:07:22] that are utilized to help into providing [00:07:24] more parking spaces. [00:07:25] And typically, when you have some sort of standardizations [00:07:27] that the designers can work with, [00:07:29] they get more efficiency out of a particular piece of land. [00:07:33] The going into the ride sharing, [00:07:44] one of the things that we're, [00:07:46] everyone knows it, and it's still hard [00:07:47] to get your hands around it as to what the heck [00:07:49] is going on with the whole Uberism and Lyfts and so forth. [00:07:54] But there's no doubt that it's an increasing component [00:07:59] that needs to be recognized. [00:08:04] There's a lot of research I was doing related to that [00:08:09] is really that there is no research and documentation yet [00:08:13] as to what is a real impact. [00:08:16] There's indication that it's growing. [00:08:18] There's indication of the, it's 33-year-old [00:08:21] is the average person who's utilizing it, [00:08:23] which is interesting to know, [00:08:25] but there's really no yet analysis. [00:08:27] So it's really kind of those things [00:08:29] you have to, from a city's perspective, [00:08:31] really kind of just recognize that it's happening [00:08:33] and that it will be impacting both how spaces are utilized [00:08:39] and how development is occurring. [00:08:41] I mean, we see that from the private side [00:08:43] of how people are trying to incorporate Uber pickups, [00:08:46] locations, and so forth into development. [00:08:49] So it is coming, but how it affects yet [00:08:52] is still an unknown. [00:08:54] I mean, you got, okay. [00:08:57] Give me a look, so I just want to make sure. [00:09:01] One of the other thoughts was shared parking. [00:09:04] Again, the ITE is pretty straightforward [00:09:06] and the city code is pretty straightforward, [00:09:08] but one of the things, again, [00:09:10] really does not really reflect or consider [00:09:13] is in a downtown situation, the mixture of uses [00:09:16] and the potential opportunity for parking [00:09:19] that is one time, maybe used during the day [00:09:23] for office or retail is being used at night [00:09:25] for entertainment or even residential. [00:09:29] So there's really not been, that is, again, [00:09:32] another consideration that should be explored [00:09:36] in the regulatory side of things. [00:09:38] That's the kind of cause with the mixture of uses, [00:09:40] the blend of uses, it goes into percentage of things. [00:09:45] One of the areas that is often, [00:09:48] and again, I know, of course, with Main Street [00:09:50] and so forth, we have the on-street parking. [00:09:52] How does that factor in into calculating parking spaces? [00:09:57] Does it factor in? [00:09:58] It may, and that's a decision that is yet to be, [00:10:01] I don't know if it really is considered. [00:10:03] I know the code allows for utilization [00:10:05] or credit for public parking that's within a city block, [00:10:09] but there really isn't discussion about on-street parking. [00:10:13] I don't mean to, in other more dense locations, [00:10:19] it's not uncommon for property owners [00:10:21] to have a shared parking agreement that's between them [00:10:27] that could also be recognized by the city [00:10:30] that if there is the, if two guys, [00:10:33] two properties are next door to each other [00:10:34] and they can figure out a way to have a shared parking lot, [00:10:38] that is often a better use. [00:10:40] Again, part of the, again, I understand the goal to be [00:10:44] that we want to encourage reuse of buildings, [00:10:46] expand existing buildings. [00:10:47] We want to, maintaining that character. [00:10:51] With the opportunity for those shared parking agreements, [00:10:56] and again, this could be agreements also with the city [00:10:59] on city parking lots. [00:11:02] One of the things that needs to go, [00:11:05] if you wish to go down this path, as it were, [00:11:10] is establishing a parking boundary, [00:11:11] whether or not it's the boundaries [00:11:12] that were established in the parking study, [00:11:15] but you kind of have to say, okay, [00:11:17] this is the area in which that parking agreement [00:11:23] can be effective. [00:11:25] I mean, it doesn't make any sense [00:11:26] to have shared parking out on 19, as it were, [00:11:29] between two couple of guys, or two property owners [00:11:31] who have something downtown. [00:11:32] So it's got to be, obviously, within a relevant study [00:11:34] or impact area. [00:11:40] One of the areas that you see used a lot in the city [00:11:47] and a number of areas in a lot of the research I was doing, [00:11:50] it's used a lot in a lot of Florida towns, [00:11:52] is, again, is in lieu of parking fee. [00:11:56] Basically, instead of having a developer build parking, [00:12:01] they pay into a city fund, [00:12:03] and then at some point in time, [00:12:05] the city then either does construction, [00:12:07] acquires land, does something to improve parking [00:12:10] in the downtown, that then becomes relied upon. [00:12:15] So it's almost, as I said, in lieu of. [00:12:17] It's like if you had a, [00:12:19] so instead of building parking spaces, you pay a fee. [00:12:21] And there are, by doing so, if there's a building, [00:12:27] for example, in the downtown, [00:12:28] if there's a building that's built property line [00:12:29] to property line, and if it comes in with a change of use, [00:12:34] and by code, by change of use, [00:12:36] you have to go and say, okay, [00:12:38] I got to add five parking spaces. [00:12:40] Well, you don't want them tearing down the building [00:12:42] to add five parking spaces. [00:12:45] That obviously begins to defeat the purpose. [00:12:46] So the concept is, you pay into a fund [00:12:50] that is managed and administered by the city, [00:12:53] that, in essence, satisfies that requirement. [00:12:57] Saves the building, reuses the building, [00:12:59] and then starts creating a pool of funds [00:13:01] then that can be used to do a number of improvements [00:13:03] for in the downtown that encourages parking [00:13:05] and pedestrian improvements. [00:13:10] And again, I was just trying to think through here. [00:13:14] There's a number of considerations [00:13:17] if you want to head down that path. [00:13:18] One of them is you got to make sure there's enough funds [00:13:21] to actually be able to do something with it, [00:13:23] because, again, people begin, [00:13:24] a person who pays into that fund [00:13:26] is going to have certain expectations, as it were, [00:13:28] that parking will be available. [00:13:30] So there's got to be a way to make sure [00:13:31] that that is actually, [00:13:34] that there is a program in place that actually occurs. [00:13:39] There's also considerations of, [00:13:42] if I'm developing on the outer edges of the downtown, [00:13:45] should I be paying the same rate [00:13:46] as a person who's closer into downtown along Main Street? [00:13:50] Those are a number of considerations. [00:13:53] Different cities have tackled it different ways [00:13:54] with either graduated rates or a flat rate. [00:13:57] There's different ideas behind [00:14:00] how to implement something like that. [00:14:03] But it seems to, especially with the goals [00:14:07] of trying to get reuse of existing buildings and so forth, [00:14:11] really probably something [00:14:12] that maybe can be strongly considered. [00:14:15] There's, of course, you got to consider [00:14:17] the whole operational side of things. [00:14:19] When you say, okay, I'm going to create a fund [00:14:21] and the city's going to take this on, [00:14:23] well, then, of course, there's operational, [00:14:24] there's construction, there's maintenance. [00:14:26] Puts a whole nother level of responsibility [00:14:31] that goes along with that. [00:14:35] But, again, there is some value to it [00:14:38] from creating a shared, [00:14:40] because, in essence, what that really helps start doing [00:14:42] is it starts by itself, [00:14:45] brings about the utilization of shared parking, [00:14:48] mixture of uses, and those kinds of things, [00:14:52] just by the fact that you're creating shared parking, [00:14:55] in essence, in lieu of. [00:15:00] Technology, we just, it's just one of those, [00:15:06] and it kind of almost goes along in the same area [00:15:08] of the whole ride sharing in the world [00:15:11] in the sense that things are changing quickly [00:15:13] in that whole parking industry. [00:15:14] I mean, everything from, you know, [00:15:17] if you go out to Disney, you know, [00:15:18] it'll tell you there's a spot right there that's vacant. [00:15:21] And, you know, and that's of course done with sensors [00:15:24] and monitors and cameras, and there's a lot [00:15:28] that can be considered. [00:15:32] And then, of course, there's the whole growing, [00:15:37] you know, when will occur the autonomous vehicle concept? [00:15:41] Don't know. [00:15:42] But it's interesting from the tending different ULI [00:15:47] and different events and so forth. [00:15:49] You know, you hear a lot of people saying, [00:15:52] oh, you got to start thinking about [00:15:53] how you're going to reuse your parking garages. [00:15:55] And then the other hand, work with some developers [00:15:59] saying I need to build 7,000 parking spaces [00:16:01] for my office building. [00:16:03] And this is literally all occurring on at the same time. [00:16:05] So, I mean, you know, where the whole autonomous vehicle [00:16:09] world is going and the fact that it can, in theory, [00:16:12] be more efficiency in parking and so forth, [00:16:15] again, it kind of falls in that same ride sharing concept. [00:16:18] It's one of those things you just got to monitor, [00:16:19] see what there is related to that. [00:16:24] There's, you know, you get into the technology, [00:16:26] you know, you can get into apps and so forth [00:16:31] that tell you where spaces are. [00:16:33] And it's actually pretty, a lot of fun, cool stuff, [00:16:36] but I'm not sure anyone's really ready to use it yet, [00:16:40] except for Disney. [00:16:44] The valet, we started looking at what are some solutions [00:16:48] related to the special event discussion [00:16:53] that goes on in the downtown. [00:16:54] And as you recall, we had identified, [00:16:58] do I have that in this different, [00:17:02] do we have the map? [00:17:03] Yay. [00:17:08] There we go. [00:17:09] We had identified a series of lots back in [00:17:11] at the November discussion that could be potentially used [00:17:15] for remote parking, satellite lots for special events [00:17:20] and so forth. [00:17:21] And, you know, again, there were just a series of locations [00:17:26] that seemed to be within a certain, oops. [00:17:34] And one of the thoughts had been valet. [00:17:40] And when we talk about that, [00:17:42] we've all been in places where there's, [00:17:45] you go into, I'm just thinking, you know, for example, [00:17:49] I was just at a conference in Orlando and there's the point [00:17:53] and they have a valet drop-off spot, [00:17:56] and, you know, which is in essence [00:17:57] for the whole development there, [00:17:59] which would not be too dissimilar of a concept [00:18:02] for what, you know, does something like that [00:18:06] be potentially applied into New Port Richey [00:18:09] when you do have special events, [00:18:11] is to have a convenient location for someone [00:18:14] to be able to leave their car and go right to the event [00:18:16] and then the car's just taken care of. [00:18:18] There's a lot of issues as I got into that [00:18:21] as to how does that work, you know? [00:18:24] And when you start thinking about the size of an event [00:18:27] and if you start thinking about what's going to potentially [00:18:29] be the utilization of a valet, [00:18:30] then you got to start thinking about how much, you know, [00:18:33] okay, if I got 10 cars at all, those start showing up, [00:18:36] well, am I blocking other traffic lanes and so forth? [00:18:38] So you guys think about the queuing, the stacking [00:18:40] of where the valet is going to occur, you know, [00:18:45] and then you start thinking about, okay, [00:18:49] now that I found a good location, [00:18:51] what am I going to do with shelters? [00:18:52] How am I going to get people there? [00:18:53] How am I going to make sure it's safe? [00:18:56] There's some, you know, considerations, [00:18:58] actually a lot of appeal to it, [00:18:59] because then again, if it's operated properly, [00:19:02] you can be very attractive as to drop the, you know, [00:19:06] you'll drop the keys and go into the event. [00:19:10] There's the discussions of which lots would be used, [00:19:15] and again, we had identified a series of lots before, [00:19:19] but as to whether or not those lots are relevant [00:19:21] for that kind of operation, not sure. [00:19:26] Then it gets back into, okay, you know, [00:19:29] the decision is we want to encourage that, [00:19:31] well, then who's going to run it? [00:19:32] You know, is that something that the city's going to do? [00:19:33] Is that something they're going to bring in [00:19:35] an org, a private company to do? [00:19:37] Is, you know, there's different techniques [00:19:40] to actually administer and operate a valet [00:19:44] type of, you know, operation. [00:19:48] The other thoughts that it came into, [00:19:51] again, during the research was, of course, [00:19:52] there's insurance considerations, there's expense issues, [00:19:55] you know, damaged car, you know, [00:19:57] all those things that come up with that, [00:20:00] that, again, is easy to overlook, at least in my opinion. [00:20:06] One of the things I found that I thought was interesting [00:20:09] was what they call the level of service, [00:20:12] you know, with your level of service for traffic [00:20:14] and so forth, same thing with valet. [00:20:16] If a person has to wait more than eight minutes, [00:20:19] you're considered to be at a level of service F, [00:20:21] you know, or E, you know, [00:20:23] because people don't want to wait more than eight minutes [00:20:25] to wait for their car. [00:20:26] So that then, of course, operates, [00:20:28] well, where the heck is the parking lot's relationship [00:20:30] to the stand, do I need to have more, you know, [00:20:32] more valet attendees, which, of course, [00:20:34] that increases costs. [00:20:35] I mean, there's a number of considerations [00:20:38] to when you say, okay, we want to do it, [00:20:40] you know, we want to implement that kind of concept [00:20:42] to how it can get actually done. [00:20:45] Satellite lots, which goes back into the concepts [00:20:50] of the eight, or the remote lots that we looked at [00:20:53] back in November, which, again, has a lot of merit to it, [00:21:01] a lot of considerations that need to, [00:21:04] we should go into as you, if you wish to start exploring [00:21:06] the opportunity of utilizing satellite lots [00:21:10] for special events, you know, [00:21:12] is how many spaces can be set aside, [00:21:14] or committed to from each lot. [00:21:16] You know, if they have other existing businesses, [00:21:18] or something else going on in that location, [00:21:21] you know, that has to be worked out. [00:21:24] Access, you know, then it opens up, [00:21:26] if these are now gonna be lots that are utilized [00:21:29] in relationship with the city event, [00:21:32] is there lighting issues, security issues, [00:21:35] where's the staging, or where's the people [00:21:37] gonna wait for the, wait for a shuttle [00:21:39] to get onto a shuttle bus to the downtown? [00:21:44] And then it gets into who, [00:21:47] how is the shuttle gonna be operated? [00:21:50] Is there gonna be a fee to buy the shuttle, [00:21:53] or are you gonna look to sponsorships, [00:21:55] or advertising to pay for that? [00:21:58] What kind of shuttle, how many people, [00:22:01] and then there's a whole trickle effect [00:22:03] as to how big of an event is it, [00:22:06] and then trying to estimate how many people [00:22:10] are gonna park in a remote lot, [00:22:12] and then, again, the operational time [00:22:13] of how long of a drive is it [00:22:15] from the remote lot to the event. [00:22:20] There's, which then started a whole discussion [00:22:26] or research related to, well, I'm on the shuttle bus, [00:22:30] and I've now agreed to park at some remote lot, [00:22:33] for the convenience of that. [00:22:35] One of them, you wanna make sure [00:22:36] there's signage and wayfinding [00:22:37] to make sure you know how to get to that lot, [00:22:39] and then I get onto the shuttle. [00:22:41] Well, you wanna make sure that shuttle [00:22:42] doesn't get stuck in traffic either. [00:22:44] Then what did I occur, what advantage [00:22:47] would that turn out to be if I'm stuck in traffic? [00:22:49] So then you started having to consider, [00:22:50] was there gonna be a traffic management plan [00:22:53] related to, and at least for the benefit of the shuttle. [00:22:57] In essence, is there gonna be helping someone [00:22:59] to help close intersections or guide the traffic through, [00:23:02] there's a traffic control person there [00:23:04] to make sure that they get a preference [00:23:06] so that that becomes more of a viable and desired option [00:23:11] to getting from a remote lot to the special event. [00:23:16] And again, that just goes back into, [00:23:18] there's the whole, the wayfinding, [00:23:20] that was also very, it's been, [00:23:22] was very important as to, again, do you do, [00:23:25] there's apps, you know, there's Parking Panda, [00:23:27] you know, there's different things that you can utilize [00:23:30] that could be integrated into, you know, [00:23:33] with the different things that a city's wanting to do. [00:23:38] Let's see, we talked about that, we've talked about that. [00:23:42] The third component that we looked at was, [00:23:44] which, you know, working with staff, [00:23:46] was within the downtown, what are areas [00:23:50] that we could do to improve efficiency? [00:23:54] Taking some of the discussion items [00:23:55] that we just talked about, you know, [00:23:56] what can you do to improve parking, [00:24:00] as well as improving pedestrian connectivity, [00:24:05] so that if I do have to remote park at a lot, [00:24:08] that the experience that I have going from that lot [00:24:12] to, whether it's Sims Park, or to Main Street, [00:24:14] or to wherever I'm going, that that is an incur, [00:24:18] you know, a path that I'm comfortable in doing. [00:24:23] And knowing that I can leave my car there, [00:24:25] and it's viable. [00:24:27] So we identified within, we talked about the areas [00:24:32] of highest utilization, which was, again, [00:24:34] behind the theater, and of course, [00:24:37] near Sims Park was observed on the weekends, [00:24:39] and then near, what can we do near City Hall, [00:24:42] in the library, to look at ways to increase parking [00:24:46] within what readily available areas, [00:24:49] and land, and so forth, and right-of-ways. [00:24:52] And so, the first area that we looked at [00:24:55] was the area behind the theater. [00:25:00] And it's, didn't appreciate the challenges [00:25:06] of that lot until you actually walk it. [00:25:10] And the grade separations, the inefficiency of it, [00:25:15] there's just a number of areas that you just kind of, [00:25:19] it just, I can appreciate how it happened, [00:25:22] but it just, you kind of go, I'm not sure [00:25:24] that that was the most efficient design [00:25:27] for that space, especially, and so we looked [00:25:32] at a short-term, what I call a short-medium-term solution, [00:25:36] and that was eliminate the drive aisles, [00:25:39] if I'm gonna flip back here, you know, if, oops, [00:25:42] what did I do? [00:25:44] There we go. [00:25:46] One of the most immediate observations [00:25:50] is that you have all of these drive aisles [00:25:52] cutting directly out onto the road, [00:25:54] and whether it's to, onto Lafayette, [00:25:56] or, oh, what's the street to those aisles? [00:26:00] Thank you. [00:26:00] And, you know, which, on one hand, [00:26:06] seems like it's efficient, but on the other hand, [00:26:08] sure creates a lot of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts. [00:26:11] And so, and then also, just from parking lot designs, [00:26:18] there's more efficient ways to do that. [00:26:20] And this is one example of how to do that. [00:26:23] You start eliminating the cross-through traffic, [00:26:27] you simplify your access points, [00:26:31] and then consolidate the lot, regrade the lot [00:26:36] so that it's consistent, you know, [00:26:39] and then you can create a much more unified parking lot, [00:26:44] landscape, and there's still the stormwater pond. [00:26:46] While we were doing this, when we were walking [00:26:48] this whole area, we got to, you know, [00:26:50] this intersection here, and we were just kind of going, [00:26:52] I just, it was like, I had to see what I could do with that. [00:26:56] And actually, within that right-of-way that is there, [00:27:03] this type of traffic circle can actually, [00:27:07] seems like it should be able to work [00:27:08] within the existing right-of-way, [00:27:10] and help resolve some of those conflicts [00:27:12] that occur there. [00:27:14] So this design, and David, if you can, [00:27:20] how many board did we, how many locations did we create? [00:27:23] I know you've done it. [00:27:25] 30. [00:27:26] 30, and so it's within the exact same space, [00:27:29] but what it does is, of course, encourage, [00:27:31] it simplifies and it makes the pedestrian connections [00:27:35] from this lot over to Grand, you know, [00:27:38] to whether you're going up to Main Street [00:27:40] or to Grand and so forth, it just makes it [00:27:42] much more simpler or safer, [00:27:45] less pedestrian vehicle conflicts, [00:27:49] and that kind of solution. [00:27:53] And then we looked at what is the long, [00:27:55] what could be a longer-term version, you know, [00:27:57] and that was getting a little bit more creative, [00:28:00] and that would be, in essence, eventually, [00:28:03] didn't really see what the long, [00:28:04] what the Lafayette connection really does, candidly, [00:28:12] so we looked at, well, can you, [00:28:14] what happens if we vacate it? [00:28:16] That actually provides a little bit more RAF [00:28:18] to provide more parking. [00:28:20] In this scenario, we're showing a small parking structure, [00:28:25] and again, you can see what we do here, [00:28:28] is you can make the better sidewalks [00:28:32] and connectivity to Grand, and again, the roundabout, [00:28:37] and that just then also provides, you know, [00:28:39] once you, of course, vacate the right-of-way, [00:28:40] half of the right-of-way goes to the adjoining property, [00:28:44] but again, it could be a longer-term solution to that. [00:28:51] To that site. [00:29:02] Oh yeah, so two levels above grade [00:29:04] is what that was looking at, [00:29:07] so it wasn't into a really big structure, [00:29:09] it was just something that was maybe scaled to the downtown. [00:29:14] What was that? [00:29:16] I'm sorry? [00:29:17] Where was that? [00:29:18] Oh, that was the, again, that was the... [00:29:20] Previous slide, the same place. [00:29:21] Same place, yeah, I'm sorry. [00:29:24] Behind the, yeah, behind the theater there. [00:29:29] Other things that have been kicked around. [00:29:39] Yeah. [00:29:46] Did that, then you square off that line. [00:29:49] Oh, that's interesting. [00:29:50] If we have to get that. [00:29:55] That potentially could add a bunch of space. [00:30:00] That's interesting, I mean, again, I... [00:30:17] O'Brady's into the whole strip of restaurants and stores. [00:30:21] Yeah, because it would run... [00:30:23] To that point. [00:30:26] Right down to practically the... [00:30:30] Just bring it straight through there. [00:30:38] That section of Lafayette was... [00:30:40] Because that was the curb and the roadway. [00:30:42] You've got Robert over there making a lot of notes. [00:30:45] Wait till he tells you where all his water lines and mains... [00:30:48] and all of the right-of-way issues he's going to have with that. [00:30:54] So that's why the curb, because that's the old railroad line. [00:31:02] Lafayette was the road, I think. [00:31:04] If you follow it, the railroad square in Nebraska, [00:31:08] the terminal was just off the edge of that. [00:31:18] Right, yep, right there. [00:31:20] And it just came around and curved down... [00:31:23] Bill Bauer's office there, of course. [00:31:25] Curved down to the south and then went down across the river. [00:31:30] And would you say Craft Street also extended, [00:31:33] because it was Old Knight-Dixie Highway was the railroad line going on. [00:31:36] Yep. [00:31:37] So across the river and went into Craft Street. [00:31:40] It went down to Craft Street and then paralleled Grand Boulevard going south, [00:31:44] which is why we've got some interesting areas just south of Craft Street. [00:31:55] It was a dead-end run, wasn't it? [00:31:58] It stopped there. [00:32:00] I was just going to ask you, where did they go after... [00:32:03] To Bill Bauer's office, to the corner of Main and Grand. [00:32:06] There was a Y somewhere down in Holiday, [00:32:10] but it was basically into here and then they had to back out. [00:32:16] Didn't last long. [00:32:17] Maybe no big surprise there, huh? [00:32:19] I was going to say, that's not a very efficient for a railroad. [00:32:22] Well, that's interesting. [00:32:25] Oranges, produce, stuff that was probably being part of it. [00:32:30] Of course, yeah. [00:32:32] There's no reason that Nebraska couldn't go. [00:32:35] No, that's interesting. [00:32:36] Assuming we could reach some sort of financial agreement with them. [00:32:40] Again, when we started this effort, the thought was not to go that path. [00:32:52] The other area we started looking at was what could we do near City Hall, [00:32:56] since we had identified that that was one of the other highly utilized areas. [00:33:03] We started looking. [00:33:05] Part of it was, of course, there's the lot just to the west of us, [00:33:09] right here on the corner of Florida and I think below Jefferson. [00:33:14] Then we looked at, well, you have one-way westbound already occurring on Florida. [00:33:24] If we were to just go and utilize the existing right-of-way that's already there, [00:33:30] just do streetscape improvements and add angled parking within the existing right-of-way, [00:33:37] we could actually create, I think, was it 20, 45 spaces? [00:33:46] What we looked at was if there is some existing parallel parking [00:33:49] that is occurring out in that area. [00:33:52] Looked at existing, and then what could we do with, of course, [00:33:57] recognizing existing driveways that are currently there, [00:34:01] and what could we do to work around that. [00:34:05] The concept there is, again, improve the pedestrian connectivity on an east-west connection [00:34:11] over headed towards Sims Park with improved sidewalk and so forth, [00:34:17] as well as, again, increasing parking within the city right-of-way. [00:34:22] The other component, which could be done as part of it or just separately, [00:34:26] is the lot right next door. [00:34:30] Do you know how many lot spaces? [00:34:34] It was all combined on this, I think. [00:34:36] Okay. [00:34:37] That was about 15, 18 lots. [00:34:40] About 18. [00:34:41] Yeah, about 15, 18 lots. [00:34:43] Not too dissimilar to the parking lot, in essence, to the north of City Hall, [00:34:48] on the north side of Florida, but, again, you could utilize coming in off of Florida, [00:34:53] coming out on the alley, and create some spaces that way, too, [00:34:59] without taking out any buildings or anything on some of the land [00:35:02] that's relatively close by to City Hall. [00:35:06] On a point there, you've got a one-way pointing in from Madison. [00:35:09] You've also got a one-way coming down by paying the water bill coming out. [00:35:15] So that's one way to the west. [00:35:20] That's one way to the south coming by City Hall. [00:35:24] And if that's one way out that way, [00:35:27] sometimes I've come in by Christina's back that way down that alley, [00:35:33] and you've also got the alley behind those other structures. [00:35:39] I don't know what it would take to reconfigure it. [00:35:48] It's a long-leaf approach where they have the porch out front [00:35:51] and then they park in the rear. [00:35:53] You could theoretically eliminate their, you know, they'd have to talk to them, [00:35:59] but I don't know that that would go over big. [00:36:02] And then you have an alley behind that gives some access to those properties. [00:36:06] That's correct. [00:36:09] In fact, on the south side, you actually have that. [00:36:12] These few houses here do not have driveways coming out onto Florida. [00:36:16] They are rear-loaded. [00:36:18] On the north side, you do have more of the current traditional house design [00:36:24] of the driveway coming out of their front. [00:36:27] And so that is the difference between on the south side [00:36:31] versus the north side of Florida in that location. [00:36:33] But this one house has its driveway coming out onto Florida. [00:36:40] But, again, it just seems like it just picks up the existing traffic flow [00:36:45] that's already created by what's going on here behind City Hall and the library, [00:36:49] just continuing it on over. [00:36:52] And, again, it creates more spaces, creates better pedestrian connectivity [00:36:56] on an east-west connection, you know, especially if you're headed to Sims, [00:37:01] within existing right of way. [00:37:03] This could be done without having to purchase any real estate. [00:37:12] Central Avenue. [00:37:14] A little further north, but it's interesting. [00:37:18] It's a very wide right of way. [00:37:21] I think it's 80 feet, as I recall, right of way there. [00:37:25] And if you look at central to, you know, the east side of Madison, [00:37:30] you know, they have the landscape median and so forth in the middle. [00:37:33] And one thought that we were looking at was, you know, [00:37:36] if you, in essence, put parallel parking, which already people do out there. [00:37:40] I mean, there's existing parallel parking out there. [00:37:42] So, in essence, continuing on with the same atmosphere as it currently is, [00:37:48] but there's enough room in the middle that you could almost, you know, [00:37:51] put a landscape median in the middle, do more parallel parking on both sides. [00:37:54] So, in essence, it becomes one way, you know, one way, of course, [00:37:57] in each direction on either side of the median, [00:38:00] and more parallel spaces in the middle. [00:38:03] But what that also could do is then creates a sidewalk or landscape median [00:38:07] that the people who do park in the middle could, again, [00:38:09] walk towards to the west without having to, you know, [00:38:13] worry about, you know, cars and so forth. [00:38:15] So, it creates a safe access point. [00:38:17] And then also, when it's not being used, when there's no one parking there, [00:38:21] then it becomes just a landscape median in the middle of the road. [00:38:25] And so, it serves both functions as both a, I don't want to say an amenity, [00:38:31] but, you know, a visual interest in the middle, [00:38:35] and then also while increasing the number of parking spaces. [00:38:38] By doing this, you know, as you can see there, we've added about 41 spaces. [00:38:42] And that, when we say the number of new spaces, that's always record. [00:38:46] We always, we document it to the best of our ability, [00:38:49] because there's no striping out there today. [00:38:50] But we're going, okay, how many spaces could you fit parallel out there today? [00:38:55] And so, that is a true net gain of 41 spaces within, again, [00:39:00] the existing right-of-way that's out there for Central Avenue. [00:39:04] Part of that, again, we were looking at, you know, [00:39:06] what could you do to improve some of the pedestrian connectivities to the north [00:39:09] and south to get down to Main Street, not only just to the east and west. [00:39:13] And there's probably room to do sidewalk widening and improvements on the Madison side. [00:39:19] Under way, right? [00:39:22] We've got to, we just approved that a few months ago. [00:39:25] See, see, plans are already in action. [00:39:29] Right, Robert? I mean, that would tie into that. [00:39:31] Exactly. [00:39:36] When we came out here doing our study, it was a day off from school, [00:39:41] and this lot was packed, which was cool. [00:39:47] It was truly interesting to see how many people were there, [00:39:50] moms and stuff with their children, and just the utilization of this lot. [00:39:56] What's it, we call this the Bank Street lot? Is that what we officially? [00:40:02] Okay, that's right. [00:40:05] I'm still trying to remember all the silent actor names. [00:40:09] But this one, and one of the things that we looked at was just how can you, [00:40:13] what could we do to, one of the things that we noticed when we were out there, [00:40:16] going back into, as referred earlier, to the inconsistency of space sizes, [00:40:22] is that we took a tape measure out, [00:40:24] and we just started measuring randomly different sized spaces. [00:40:27] And there is inconsistency of the different sizes out there. [00:40:31] And also, we were just, when we were out there, [00:40:34] just the number of people who were walking along this path, [00:40:38] and cars just coming in, the, I'll just say conflicts, [00:40:43] that cars stopping and err, you know, [00:40:46] because there are people with strollers and all sorts of things walking along Bank Street, [00:40:52] that it was kind of interesting, it was kind of noteworthy. [00:40:57] And so what we looked at was what could we do to, [00:41:02] and what was also, I guess we observed, [00:41:08] was that, you know, this portion of Bank Street, [00:41:11] with this wide sidewalk and the tables that were out here, [00:41:13] you know, they're being, I can't, I don't remember who the users, [00:41:17] who the tenants were in here, but the tables were all being used. [00:41:20] I mean, there were people sitting out there. [00:41:22] I thought that was, you know, it was kind of nice. [00:41:24] And so we looked at what could we do to encourage more pedestrian connectivity [00:41:29] between the parking lot, both to Sims, as well as down to Main Street. [00:41:35] And so we reoriented the parking lot into, as you can see, in a north-south direction, [00:41:41] got rid of all the drives coming in off of Bank Street, [00:41:45] widened the sidewalk to match the same width along further to the south. [00:41:50] It allows the opportunity to create some parallel parking along Bank Street, [00:41:55] wider sidewalk, and a landscape buffer of about six feet between the sidewalk [00:42:00] and the parking spaces. [00:42:02] And, again, just by simply reorienting the parking lot coming in off the alley [00:42:07] or coming in off of a circle, thank you, from the north into the lot, you know, [00:42:14] it not only creates several more spaces, but the improvement, I truly believe, [00:42:19] as to the safety and the, you know, we're showing enhanced connectivity here with some, [00:42:28] do something here to make the connectivity, obviously, pedestrian-wise, [00:42:32] clear as to where you should go, I think really has, I'll just say, [00:42:37] tremendous value to making that even a more desirable lot than it already is. [00:42:44] And I think it could actually help bring people not only, you know, down to Main Street. [00:42:50] If this is a nice walking corridor, then that really, I think, adds a lot of value to that area. [00:43:00] Bruce, can you, not to interrupt you, but we were talking yesterday [00:43:04] and we were looking at this slide and we thought about, well, you know what, [00:43:09] the right-of-way along Bank Street and around the 90-degree curve, if you notice it, [00:43:15] it's a lot wider than what it is when you head towards Grand Boulevard. [00:43:20] So you have several opportunities there at minimal cost to maybe put a few spaces of on-street parking taken [00:43:29] and maybe redesign the north end of the parking lot to put some parallel parking. [00:43:35] And then you also have some area behind the incubator that you could re-stripe [00:43:41] and there would be some additional parking back in that area. [00:43:45] So there is some things that we could add to this that would be what we would consider short-term [00:43:51] at a minimal cost to add some additional spaces. [00:43:54] Well, and towards that end, Robert, when we looked at our field work [00:43:59] and we were doing the study, as you recall, I mean, you know, there was still activity. [00:44:05] There was a current construction act, you know, this was being used, I don't know for what, [00:44:08] but, you know, there was still a construction mode, I guess is kind of what I would say. [00:44:14] And I didn't want to, because you're absolutely right, the right-of-way, [00:44:19] you could probably add more parallel parking even on the other side here. [00:44:22] I did not want to, without knowing what was, you know, [00:44:27] I knew that there had been ongoing discussions related to the hotel. [00:44:30] I did not want to make the presumption that, you know, so it didn't show that. [00:44:34] But, yes, there is absolutely room. [00:44:36] And then if you take that further to the north, when we were out there, [00:44:41] they were having a field day of providing tickets for the people rolling, [00:44:46] stopping through the stop sign there. [00:44:48] And you just kind of go to your point. [00:44:52] If you could do something that helps traffic calm that by, i.e., [00:44:56] putting more parallel parking along there and so forth, [00:44:59] I think it would help. [00:45:00] have a lot of, you know, again, not having a full appreciation of how that [00:45:05] road operated from a, it's just. [00:45:12] Really just the in and out road. [00:45:14] It's not one that's collecting a whole lot of traffic. [00:45:17] You have to be headed there to go on that, right? [00:45:19] I mean, we come out to the light at Maine if you're coming [00:45:24] around the other direction. [00:45:26] So the only way, the reason to go through there is if you want to go to the park [00:45:30] or you want to go to the parking lot, mostly. [00:45:44] There's, like I said, there's, there's, there is the room to do that. [00:45:48] Yeah. [00:45:48] We didn't actually do it right on the, on the corner where the, right, right. [00:45:52] Yeah, sure. [00:45:52] You didn't do it right here, but I was parked over on the, [00:45:56] the side closer to the Hacienda and there was, you could have easily [00:46:00] put another car on the other side of the street from me and still had two lanes. [00:46:04] Correct. [00:46:04] Because we measured that when we were out there, we, you know, we were doing [00:46:06] just, we were just doing some field measurements with the little tape [00:46:09] measure and wheel and stuff like that. [00:46:10] And we were just kind of getting a feel of the appreciation of it. [00:46:13] And it was like, again, I absolutely agree with, agree with you is, is [00:46:17] that there is the room to do that. [00:46:19] I just didn't want to not knowing what was going on here at the time. [00:46:24] This is going to be a crunch in basically half the spaces in that lot. [00:46:49] Could I ask something, something else too then, Mr. [00:46:51] Mayor, on that point, the grassy area on the top and, well, I guess, [00:46:56] first of all, coming in off the bank. [00:46:59] There's right there? [00:47:00] No, on the inside of there. [00:47:02] Oh, over here, right here. [00:47:03] Right there. [00:47:04] So if you, if you start from Bank Street coming in and you make a right on the [00:47:08] street before you enter the parking lot, the street that runs behind those [00:47:13] businesses, when you get to the corner, you see everything is angled parking. [00:47:18] So that's all an exit only coming out through there, right? [00:47:22] Correct. [00:47:22] So if your entrance is down here, then could you not follow that path at the [00:47:30] top over to that exit only and get parking through that green space? [00:47:35] Like, you know, yeah, coming out there and then sort of also exiting out there [00:47:42] and just make the parking lot circular that way. [00:47:45] I mean, you might be able to come in and out both ways, I guess, the way you've [00:47:49] designed it, but that's, that's an interesting... [00:47:55] Some more parking could be up there on that grass and up against the building as well. [00:48:02] No? [00:48:03] No, no, no. [00:48:05] In anticipation of that discussion, I just, I have... [00:48:08] I think we should ask about that. [00:48:09] And again, I hadn't drawn anything, but David and I had some following up with [00:48:17] discussions because we did, Robert had shared with us, you know, a little bit [00:48:20] of what was happening, which I think is exciting that finally, you know, that [00:48:24] there's going to actually be a demand for their need to have this discussion [00:48:28] with the hotel, which is very... [00:48:30] And so we were talking about, you know, okay, what can we, what's the next [00:48:35] level of thought on how, what to do with that? [00:48:38] And partially, again, it goes back to, because Mary, you're absolutely right [00:48:41] about the wet, the pavement on Bank Street is easily to provide more parking. [00:48:47] But, so I haven't drawn anything up yet. [00:48:59] And on the fly, right? [00:49:01] There you go. [00:49:03] One of the thoughts that we were having. [00:49:05] Two different, two different thoughts. [00:49:10] One of them is that knowing what the real need for Circle Road or Circle Drive [00:49:17] really is, but is if we were to, in essence, take one solution is to take [00:49:31] this road straight through, create a separate parking lot here, as we're [00:49:39] shown, and also this then becomes a separate designated parking lot. [00:49:56] Just got to remember the parade. [00:49:58] Oh, my God. [00:49:59] Well, again, that's actually a good thing, because I'm not sure what... [00:50:03] Well, there was talk about this before, but I think we left it for parade purposes. [00:50:07] Almost within the existing limitations of the existing road, you could almost [00:50:12] create a separate parking lot. [00:50:29] So, in essence, that becomes a separate lot, from a safety perspective, it kind of [00:50:38] does it that way, was one thought we were having. [00:50:41] So, you bring your 90 degree. [00:50:42] Yeah, this just becomes a 90 degree. [00:50:46] Other thought, depending upon the real world of the road, was that we just [00:51:00] couldn't make this road, in essence, that into a parking lot. [00:51:04] This comes up this way, and we make this, I haven't really thought through this, [00:51:08] but in essence, you can make this whole thing a parking lot. [00:51:13] You probably don't want to make quite that much, as Councilman Holman's going [00:51:17] to tell you, because you've got... [00:51:21] The one critical piece is you've got a parade route that comes right through [00:51:25] here, and then goes south on Bank. [00:51:27] Okay. [00:51:27] But if you cut it there, extending the parking lot into this section is doable. [00:51:37] Because we were looking at going, okay, if this is doing this, as you're [00:51:41] describing, you're coming, the hotel is probably going to want to make sure they [00:51:44] have north, southbound, as well as northbound, especially for parking here. [00:51:50] But when we were looking at it, kind of going, really, does this road really, [00:51:55] as you pointed out, so we say, okay, this is a no touch, this you've got to leave [00:51:59] that access. [00:52:00] Right, and that gives you your two way traffic in and out of the hotel. [00:52:06] One approach is just to say, you come in off of here, you're entering a parking [00:52:10] lot, and then this parking lot comes in here. [00:52:12] Well, that's kind of my point, is that that's the only reason to go there, other [00:52:16] than to get to the light at Bank to go out, where you always have this light at [00:52:20] Main, at Grand to go out, so there's no reason to make that extra drive to turn [00:52:26] to go to that light, particularly. [00:52:27] You can't utilize this as a main road. [00:52:32] No, you wouldn't. [00:52:33] Because it's dependent if there's delivery trucks. [00:52:34] No, no, I'm not suggesting, but it's a fair point, but I guess the thought was [00:52:40] that if you came in off of Grand right here, and make the left at the Veterans [00:52:50] Memorial, and then somewhere basically right in front of the incubator, that [00:52:57] just widens into the entrance into that now really big, glorious Swanson parking [00:53:04] lot, you have added a ton of space. [00:53:07] Now, so just to go back to my first cheap and easy one, without messing with the [00:53:12] road at all, can you do another slide here? [00:53:15] Of course. [00:53:17] What if you simply extended this path out to merge it with one way to come out this [00:53:24] way, so you've got parking up against the building, and you've got parking along [00:53:30] that space there until it runs out. [00:53:32] I don't know if that's a shadow. [00:53:37] It looks like it's just a shadow. [00:53:38] You want to leave about 10 feet in front of the door. [00:53:40] Right, because you do have a sidewalk there. [00:53:41] Right. [00:53:52] Only gets you up against the building is all you've got there. [00:53:56] So this is critical here to square this off here. [00:54:00] So, yeah, initially I thought that didn't buy you much, no. [00:54:09] You could put golf carts on the one side, got plenty of them in town. [00:54:13] Oh, there is merit in that, but it really doesn't. [00:54:18] Yeah, it doesn't do much. [00:54:19] I'm surprised it doesn't really add that much. [00:54:20] Yeah, you're right. [00:54:23] Because this whole section is now just sort of there. [00:54:27] The only option you'd have if you took a couple of these lines out, I guess, what [00:54:35] does that do for you? [00:54:36] Nothing, yeah. [00:54:40] But if you ran, if you took these and put them up here and extend those up, then [00:54:46] you've got a significant number of new spaces. [00:54:50] That is, let me just. [00:54:53] Yeah, now you go to Mayor's, he's got his math working. [00:54:57] This is peaceful. [00:55:01] Good, I've got to have one of those things in the punch bowl once in a while just to [00:55:05] keep everyone. [00:55:07] Can we tell the folks that are in the audience that they want to come up and take a [00:55:11] peek at these drawings? [00:55:13] Anybody wants to? [00:55:14] No way. [00:55:15] It's a fake. [00:55:21] This, if you did that. [00:55:27] And you're just saying you, in essence, could extend this. [00:55:30] Yeah. [00:55:35] And do we want to just continue that as it were? [00:55:40] I'm just saying this thing could do this all the way, a point, and then we'd take [00:55:51] that back. [00:55:53] That makes, that's the usage that's needed in that area. [00:55:57] I mean, I can't think of any transportation need, Mayor, other than the parking lot. [00:56:01] It really is, and that still leaves, it leaves the walkway for the, for the grade. [00:56:08] A ton of people would go into that park now, would have easy access, and it wouldn't be [00:56:12] meant for cross traffic, really. [00:56:13] It would make getting into the park safer. [00:56:18] Somewhere in here. [00:56:19] And you would just clear out the traffic coming south, all the way around, and they'll go [00:56:24] out this way instead of going down Grand. [00:56:25] Yeah, they'll go over to Grand. [00:56:26] I think that would, that could work, and that would add a, yeah, a ton. [00:56:27] And with the one-way coming out, you've got a whole loop option there if you wanted to, [00:56:43] you know, this is coming, this is now going to be one-way going this way, or no? [00:56:48] You're still two-way. [00:56:49] It's still two-way. [00:56:50] It's still two-way. [00:56:51] Oh, okay. [00:56:52] Just have the, oh, I see, you've moved this back off of there to give it a little more. [00:56:56] You're narrowing it down and making it slower, you know? [00:56:59] There's nothing wrong with that. [00:57:00] That's, I like that. [00:57:01] Can you slide the PA over there? [00:57:02] We'll see how it kind of blends together, you know, huh? [00:57:03] Put Milo in. [00:57:04] He gets it. [00:57:05] Anyways, it was just. [00:57:06] Good job. [00:57:07] Good thinking. [00:57:08] Well, that's on the fly, like Debbie said. [00:57:26] I mean, that was part of the circle that went all the way around the lake, and we gutted [00:57:34] that when we redid the park and put the brick walkway through that only opens up to the [00:57:39] parade. [00:57:40] So that stretch of what had been Grand Boulevard is just sort of there. [00:57:48] We just repaved it to make it nice, but we didn't put a ton of money into that. [00:57:52] And I think the reason why it's wider there was that was part of the old state highway [00:57:56] system. [00:57:57] Yeah, the old Grand Boulevard. [00:57:58] That's why it's wider. [00:57:59] That's why it's wider. [00:58:00] And that's why we were looking at some of the parallel parking, because we, you know, [00:58:05] you've already got that extra space, but. [00:58:07] So that's why that's, I learned, I did not know about the rail line going through there. [00:58:12] That's old Highway 19 there. [00:58:15] Yeah. [00:58:16] Hmm. [00:58:17] Good. [00:58:18] Interesting. [00:58:19] That's kind of where we were at. [00:58:20] Well, that's good. [00:58:21] It's given us some things to think about. [00:58:22] Absolutely. [00:58:23] Frank Starkey had some comments that he sent all of us, what it's worth. [00:58:42] His biggies, he wasn't real keen on one way in Florida, although I would tend to disagree [00:58:47] with that. [00:58:49] He pointed out how much the parking garage would cost for the additional spaces, and [00:58:54] he computed up over $50,000. [00:58:59] Net increase of spaces that you'd wind up with, and that gets really expensive if we [00:59:05] can come up with enough ground level space with some of this other stuff. [00:59:11] That's, in fact, when we were working through this, we said, what can we do on a relatively [00:59:15] shorter term basis? [00:59:18] And then also, what is long term? [00:59:21] Because, again, I know it's been talked about, because a lot of the time, I've been, just [00:59:27] the city's, what can we do about a structure? [00:59:29] What do we do about a structure? [00:59:30] And again, it's just been... [00:59:31] I went up to the University of Florida football game Saturday night, which is why I missed [00:59:32] it. [00:59:33] Apparently it was a really good concert in the park. [00:59:34] But they've got two solutions that they use for the game, and they're moving 90 plus thousand [00:59:48] people into the stadium, so it's a lot bigger than even Chasco on country music. [00:59:57] They do long distance... [01:00:00] remote parking out on the the Oaks Mall which is probably four or five miles [01:00:06] from the stadium, buses, and those those just go on a rotator. There may be, we've got a [01:00:18] couple of spots including the one that you had identified on the west side of [01:00:24] US-19, that probably needs that sort of solution for somebody like [01:00:29] Chasco to make use of it. The other thing, and I had not seen it until this [01:00:34] Saturday, and admittedly I haven't been to a game in years, [01:00:39] repeat a copy to take to the Chasco folks, they've got these overgrown gems [01:00:46] and they put, they've sold advertising on the tops of them, and the [01:00:53] drivers are working for tips, and there were dozens of those things going up and [01:00:58] down the street. In fact, we had talked, in fact I think the report refers to, you [01:01:04] know, one things you could explore is a downtowner concept in a shuttle and of [01:01:09] somewhat similar to that. I'm not, you know, that one of the, you know, there's [01:01:20] the special events and then of course then there's every day, and downtown [01:01:27] continues to go through with revitalization, you know, what's going to [01:01:31] become the mix of the downtown, you know, is yet to be determined. Right now I [01:01:35] think that the crunch is going to be the special events, because even if we do things just like the Caribbean Festival, we're [01:01:48] parking all over places that are not going to be available in six months. One [01:01:54] of the things where those shuttles, which will really kind of be, you don't want to [01:02:01] take them out onto US-19, for example, you know, you got to have a vehicle that is [01:02:05] that is safer. [01:02:13] That is definitely an intriguing concept, I think, as the city continues, it goes [01:02:20] back into the monitoring, you know, to see when that comes really useful. We [01:02:25] were picking up people at the rec center, some of the church parking lots, and [01:02:28] bringing them into, that would, that sort of approach would, I think, work. Right, where you're dealing with local streets and so forth, absolutely. St. Pete, I think, just started doing that. Downtown Tampa does, St. Pete has [01:02:43] something similar. You know, a lot of cities, you know, even, my son goes to [01:02:47] Florida Gulf Coast, and down even Fort Myers has just started a similar type of [01:02:52] free shuttle, you know, and it's supported by, between advertising and [01:02:59] tips, you know, and I will for a couple years now, actually. So, I mean, there's, [01:03:06] you know, it gets back into, there's, I think, techniques and code issues that [01:03:12] the city can do in a short-term basis, you know, along with some physical [01:03:17] improvements. Some of the other stuff, there's a lot of, a lot of things are [01:03:20] changing, a lot of, a lot of technologies, a lot of things to, you know, the full [01:03:24] ride-sharing. [01:03:33] Did any of you, or maybe Robert has, looked at the parallel spaces? They're over-large, which is great for those of us who haven't done a lot of parallel parking, but [01:03:46] if we, if we compress those down to sort of, if we could gain some off-cart spots [01:03:58] without losing any... You could, but the only thing that I would, would caution is, [01:04:07] is I wouldn't recommend designating golf cart parking spaces. If you, if you can [01:04:14] Google and go on the villages, they do a very good job of incorporating and [01:04:19] utilizing those parking spaces to, on a first-come, first-served basis, and [01:04:24] depending on what kind of special event they have, depends on if there's more [01:04:28] cars that show up, or golf carts, and so they do a very good outreach education [01:04:34] program to where, if there's a parking space that's available, you can get three [01:04:39] golf carts parked in it, side by side. If somebody's driving a car, because it's [01:04:45] raining now, and they're not driving their golf carts, you don't lose any of [01:04:50] the parking spaces, and no one's using it because of that reason. You can get a [01:04:54] car, and you can park in there. That's a good point. It may just be an educator golf cart. Right, and we try, we've [01:05:01] started a little bit, I know, in maybe not the last news article or city [01:05:07] letter, I'm sorry, we put in a couple pictures of how to park in the parking [01:05:12] spaces. Might it be something we give when they get their registration? Sure, sure. [01:05:18] Mayor, this is on the continuation of the discussion still, and welcome. [01:05:25] Councilman Davis, hey listen man, there's another design you need to look at [01:05:30] before you leave though, they just did on a parking lot there by the Sims Park, [01:05:34] that is literally on the plot. We might have actually invented something here [01:05:39] with the mayor's help on consultants that you should be looking at, because [01:05:44] my point is really to say that based on Councilman Starkey's comments about [01:05:51] being concerned about the Hacienda, and the fact that it's going to be opening [01:05:54] by within nine, eleven, twelve months in theory, or a little over that, that may be [01:06:04] a priority for us when we get down to looking at it, and something that we're [01:06:09] going to probably say would be our first step in my view from what I've heard. [01:06:13] I think you are absolutely on target on that. Well if we solve that [01:06:18] problem, but going back to the other drawings that you did, what the mayor was [01:06:23] full of ideas today, I don't know what he's been eating, but he's wanting to [01:06:27] move Railroad Square potentially all the way to Lincoln Street to kind of [01:06:31] connect it with the Beefo Bravies, if he could work it out, but that's [01:06:36] privately owned. But as to that parking lot that you showed, and I know I've [01:06:41] spoken with Debbie, and I know that Grady Pridgen, who owns that property, [01:06:46] has spoken with her, and he's had some concepts in mind, and he's indicated to [01:06:52] me that he would like to do something if he can figure it out. The whole answer [01:06:59] to that is whether he can do what he wants to do, and he's pretty aggressive [01:07:03] with his, maybe the height and some of those things that we've had discussions [01:07:06] for. So that whole parking lot, what happens with that, depending on who you [01:07:11] talk to, and dealing with that willing investor who may not be able to build [01:07:18] what he wants to build at that spot, is really going to cause, I think, us to [01:07:22] have Debbie and the staff kind of work, and redevelopment folks work through [01:07:27] what is realistic before we go too far down the road on anything, to say what [01:07:33] what are the options. And I'm not sure what they all are, but you have somebody [01:07:38] who's willing to do something, who wants to invest in town, but what he's asking for [01:07:42] has been determined to be too much, it doesn't meet our densities and our land [01:07:48] uses and all that. So I think it's the perfect time for all these things to [01:07:53] come together, really, because we're talking about required number of [01:07:56] parking spaces per business, now maybe required number of parking spaces, as [01:08:04] being suggested by the other Mr. Starkey, of a blended rate, and just whether it's [01:08:11] a parking space per thousand, is that what he put in his, he produced a little [01:08:15] memo today. I didn't read his memo, I haven't read it yet today. Yeah, but he's [01:08:20] putting in some kind of ideas, and he's been holding these little percolation [01:08:26] meetings with the community, too. So I think all of that stuff has to somehow [01:08:33] come together in some kind of outcome from us as a council or as a CRA board [01:08:39] to say where are we headed with that stuff. That's my comment. [01:08:46] Yes, of course. On the Swanson one, let's see exactly what we gain on that, because that, I don't know the cost of the [01:09:02] asphalt, Robert, but I'm guessing that's dirt cheap to do? I would say that's [01:09:06] going to give you the bang for your buck for the most parking spaces, the [01:09:11] location, the whole nine yards, your return on investment is going to be [01:09:15] huge, and I think it would be doable. We certainly will pursue it further. Yeah, I think so. I think, again, Mr. Davis is here, [01:09:26] our chopper, as he likes to be called, right? Most of the time, yeah. Except for right now, apparently, but no. I think while you're here, you ought to go... [01:09:36] Well, now's the time for you to take a look at that, because that was the outcome of what we did. [01:09:43] We'll present something. I'll get it, yeah. I mean, you've got to get it to Jeff, too, so there's no problem. Right. Any other comments?

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3. 3Adjournment