The Parking Station

Mission: Invigorate mixed-use neighborhoods by providing new public parking facilities and/or upgrading existing facilities.

What is a Parking Station?
A Parking Station is a transportation hub for commercial and mixed-use communities. It provides access for shoppers, diners and residents to street-front businesses and housing. It provides owners with spaces to address the parking requirements triggered when they improve and/or develop their properties-or even when they lease to a new tenant. And by providing parking on a neighborhood level, the Parking Station allows a community to grow organically, without the need for "mall-style" redevelopment.

There is already public parking in my area. Why do we need a Parking Station?
Many areas offer public parking to visitors, but rarely does that parking serve the small-to-mid-size developers who may wish to build neighborhood-scaled projects or lease space to new tenants. That's because developers often can't readily get "credit" for these off-site spaces when they make improvements or sign leases with heavy parking users like restaurants. Parking Stations serve as "development banks" from which property owners can buy credits to satisfy code parking requirements and meet the demands of the marketplace when they improve and/or lease their properties.

What do Parking Stations do for Communities?
By changing the way people arrive to a neighborhood and the way developers build, Parking Stations can help create the foundation for a community to become more pedestrian-friendly and more lively at a human scale. And by providing short-term parking convenient to businesses along a main street, they can help free up on-street spots in residential areas for residents.

What does a Parking Station Look Like?
Like it's always been in the neighborhood. Parking Stations fit into the existing community fabric, at the same scale as other buildings, and with stores at street level. Inside, they are clean, open, and safe. Like a train station, they give visitors a sense they have arrived someplace special.

How do Parking Stations work for Businesses?
They allow street-front businesses to flourish without competing for parking with nearby residences or businesses. They also provide a way for restaurants to move to or expand in street-front locations while maintaining the integrity of the local streetscape.

How do they work for Developers?
They provide the spaces developers need for their projects, a short walk away. They thus allow property owners to build at a neighborhood scale without bearing the full cost of underground or structured onsite parking and without the loss of human-scale storefronts to auto ramps and gates. They free up the dead potential in their properties

How do Parking Stations work for Mixed-Use Housing?
By providing code parking at the neighborhood level, they allow small-to-mid-scale properties to retain their integrity when they undergo residential conversion instead of being lost to surface or structured parking.

Is this a recipe for unlimited growth?
Not at all. In fact, if a community builds most or all of its spaces in Parking Stations, development can be limited upfront by how much parking is built and, thus, how many development credits may be purchased.

What does it take to Build a Parking Station?
Demand for a revitalized main street, a well-organized community, existing buildings that work at a pedestrian scale, a supportive City government, good site(s), public-private development expertise, and public and/or private capital.

Who can perform a Feasibility Study for a Parking Station?
Civic Enterprise Associates LLC can. Call 213-403-0170 for more information or to make arrangements for a neighborhood-specific study.