by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The City will need to add parking to the Bay Street Towncenter to keep up with demand as the nascent entertainment district develops, according to a consultant hired by the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission.
The Towncenter, an eight-square-block area stretching from Main Street to Liberty Street and designated by the City as downtown’s entertainment district, has sufficient parking until 2008, according to a report from Tampa-based Walker Parking Consultants. But demand will exceed supply by 264 spaces in 2009 and the shortfall will grow to more than 500 spaces by 2014.
There is already a shortfall in the number of on-street spaces in the area, but public and private lots more than make up the difference. During peak hours for parking demand, there are 1,614 cars searching for 2,043 available spaces, according to the report.
But many of those spaces are contained in County lots behind the Duval County Courthouse and the City Hall Annex garage across Forsyth Street from the Main Branch Library. Investors in the Bay Street project have asked the City for more spaces easily accessible from Bay Street. Easier parking would lead to more foot traffic along the street and possibly more customers for Bay Street businesses, they argue.
One Bay Street property owner, Churchwell Building owner Robert Pavelka, cited a lack of parking as one reason his plans fell through to sell to nightclub developer Bob Green. Although Green said Pavelka’s asking price was the primary reason he dropped his bid to move to Bay Street, he said the area would benefit from more parking.
Pavelka has since decided to develop the building himself and has haggled with the City to lease space in a vacant City lot at the corner of Bay and Market streets to support a proposed development that would mix 21 loft apartments with ground-floor retail.
The Walker study recommends that the City use the lot for parking. However, it recommends against leasing spaces in blocks as developers like Pavelka have requested. Instead, the City should build 38 surface spaces on the lot, keeping them open for daily parkers. That would provide visitors to Bay Street with parking and, by charging the relatively more expensive hourly rates, keep the lot profitable.
Walker estimates the City would spend $78,000 to build the lot, a rate of $1,600 a space. The surface lot would make most of that money back by 2009 and would make $41,000 a year in 2009 and 2010 by charging hourly rates.
Walker suggested charging 80 cents an hour capped at $5.60. That would be in line with downtown’s market rates. Market rates are important because a glut of City-owned spaces could take customers from private lots with cheap rates. That could have a chilling effect on future private parking construction.
Economics are the primary reason Walker recommended the surface lot over a City-owned garage on the site at least for the time being. The consultant estimated construction costs for a 145-car, five-story garage at more than $2.1 million or $14,000 a space. Even with higher rates, the construction costs would make the project a money loser through 2011.