Downtown’s 51 parking garages and surface parking lots and more than 1,600 metered spaces on the streets make available more than 40,000 public parking spaces.
With that many options for a place to store a vehicle while Downtown to work or play, you might think the subject of parking would rarely be an issue.
“It’s all about perception,” said Mark Rimmer, parking consultant and president of Realistic Transportation Alternatives Inc.
“We have an adequate supply of parking Downtown. If there is a shortfall, it’s in parking that is available to dedicate to a lease or a specific use,” he said.
Rimmer said the relocation of 1,600 EverBank employees from the suburbs to 301 W. Bay St. and moving the court system from East Bay Street to the new Duval County Courthouse in LaVilla has brought the biggest change to Downtown parking in years.
“Moving the courthouse means there has been a shift in parking demand from one side of Downtown to the other. EverBank is bringing back a dynamic we haven’t had west of Main Street in a while. We’re having a heavier rush hour with the influx of office workers,” he said.
The task of planning parking was made more important by the density of EverBank’s new Downtown workforce.
Rimmer said while average worker density in an office tower is 2.5 employees per 1,000 square feet of space, EverBank’s density is about six workers per 1,000 square feet of leased space. That creates almost double the parking requirement than average for the amount of space involved.
Rimmer said parking is part of Downtown’s infrastructure, which made addressing the issue as soon as EverBank leased space in the former AT&T Tower a priority.
The keys to the process were cooperation and designing a plan to meet everyone’s needs as closely as possible.
“There were five parking owners involved. Everybody understood the bigger picture and also that what benefits one parking location Downtown actually benefits all of the locations,” said Rimmer.
“We were able to park people based on their schedules, so the traffic patterns and pedestrian flow to and from the building can be controlled,” he said.
Rimmer said the parking arrangements were personalized to the point, for example, that people who come Downtown from the Westside are parking on the west side of EverBank Center. What time they arrive for work and leave for home also was considered for each employee.
“We based where people should park on their demographics and their work schedule,” he said.
Parking for visitors who need to visit an office, retailer or entertainment venue Downtown is also available and convenient, Rimmer said.
“If you take an aerial view of Downtown and put it over an aerial view, to scale, of any suburban shopping mall or St. Johns Town Center, you’ll see that there’s more parking closer to more front doors Downtown than in any other shopping district,” he said.
Based on his experience with planning the parking for EverBank, Rimmer said Downtown can accommodate the needs of any company that is considering relocating to the urban core.
“There are many different management tools we can use to make it work. Availability of parking will never be the reason a company can’t come Downtown,” he said.
For information about parking options Downtown, visit downtownjacksonville.org and click on the Getting Around button on the home page.
@DRMaxDowntown
356-2466