I forked over $17.50 to the Parking Authority for a copy of the 45-page final downtown parking assessment by Blue Bell, Pa.-based Tim Haahs and Associates, commissioned last year. I finally got to reviewing it and will present it in two posts: parking needs followed by recommendations tomorrow.
Category Archives: Parking
No go on parking deck expansion
Good news for some Sky View residents: They get to keep their view. The Parking Authority passed on the idea of adding two levels to the existing parking deck at Lewis and Main streets.
Executive Director Donald Andersen said commissioners had concerns about the cost effectiveness and shutting down a large portion of the garage during construction, as well as possibly Main and Lewis streets. Construction probably would have last four to five months in either case and two levels of the garage would be closed.
Adding one level would have cost $2.6 million and created another 85 spaces ($31,000 per) while two levels would have cost $4.8 million and added 170 spaces ($29,000 per). The existing six-story parking deck, which opened four years ago with 524 spaces, cost $11 million (which works out to about $21,000/space).
Commissioners discussed the “Vertical Expansion Feasibility Draft Report,” prepared by Tim Haahs & Associates of Blue Bell, Pa., at their November meeting.
Andersen said the parking study commissioned last summer will hopefully be completed by the end of March.
Study to evaluate parking deck, needs
A consultant will evaluate downtown parking needs, including the feasibility of constructing a deck on Lot B (behind East Cherry Street) and adding two levels to the Main Street deck. A preliminary report to the Parking Authority is expected by the end of the year.
Until the residential housing meltdown of the last several years, the parking deck at Lot B (photo, below left) was to be part of The Westbury by Dornoch, which is also constructing The Savoy. Original plans included a 324-space, five-story parking deck, 150 condos and 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
Instead, the Parking Authority and the city will take the lead on the Lot B garage. City Administrator and Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier said the developer would be back-charged for each unit that would require a space in the deck. Changes also will require renegotiations to the redevelopment agreement with Dornoch, which could take several months, said Redevelopment Agency attorney Frank Regan.
Developers have spent about $5.5 million i
n recent years to assemble properties for The Westbury project, according to Regan. That total could surpass $7 million once they acquire the Greek-American Deli on Main Street and a Parking Authority parcel, he added, and so the project has simply become too cost prohibitive to put together at this point.
In an interview after last week’s Parking Authority meeting, Chairman Matt Dobrowolski said there’s already been discussion with the city administration about a possible third location for a parking deck. “We’re looking long-term, not just the Dornoch project,” he said. Adding two levels at the Main Street deck (photo, right) is more difficult with Carriage City Plaza now constructed, he said, but they have the ability to do it although it won’t solve the Lot B issue.
The Main Street deck took about a year to erect and Dobrowolski expects the same timeline with the Lot B deck. Opened in December 2004, the six-story, 524-space deck cost $11 million — $3 million of which is to be paid back to NJ Transit.
Traffic changes this week
Two-way traffic is scheduled to begin downtown, on Main and Irving streets, this week. In addition to those one-way streets becoming two-way, several one-way side streets (East Cherry and Coach) will reverse direction while another that’s currently two-way (Poplar) will become one-way toward Irving; so all three will flow toward Irving.
Striping is scheduled to be done Monday evening and signs will be uncovered for Tuesday morning when the change is officially expected to occur. If there’s an issue, it could be pushed back a day, said Police Chief John Rodger, but the goal is to have it completed before the holiday weekend.
Cones will run the length of Irving and Main so motorists will have to stay in one lane, reinforcing the pattern change, according to Rodger, and Traffic will have a heavy presence downtown during the transition. The cones will be removed in phases, he added, to continually reinforce the patterns for a period of time.
When merchants were surveyed last year about changing traffic patterns downtown, most were in favor.
Parking deck permits going up 30 percent
A 30-percent increase in the monthly cost of parking permits for the Lewis Street garage has sparked a petition drive.
Tina Morgan and others who use the deck are collecting signatures for a petition they plan to present to the Parking Authority. She will be collecting signatures outside the deck on Thursday from 6 to 7:15 p.m., Friday morning, and again from 3 to 5 p.m. that day.
Raising rates had been mentioned as a possibility earlier in the year, but the Parking Authority Board of Commissioners at its June meeting approved increasing the monthly rate for the new parking deck by $20 — from $65 to $85.
Permits for surface lots are going up by $10, roughly 20 percent, from $50 to $60 or $55 to $60. The only fees that won’t see increases are a lot leased from St. Mary’s Church and permits in Lot B (behind The Waiting Room), which are downtown residents and merchants, said Parking Authority Executive Director Don Andersen.
Commissioners, w
ho meet the first Wednesday of the month, discussed fee increases at their May meeting, according to minutes. At least one commissioner suggested Rahway’s rates are “very low” compared to other towns while another said the increases “would not be as bad as originally proposed.” The garage began 24-hour operations June 3 in anticipation of the opening of Carriage City Plaza. Condo residents were expected to begin moving in this month.
Morgan, who uses the deck daily before taking a train to her job in Newark, said the only other neighboring parking deck with comparable rates to Rahway’s $85 is in Elizabeth at $90. She suggested the fee hike be staggered — increasing by $10 this August, and another $10 next August — to make it “more digestible.”
Morgan offered an excerpt of the letter she plans to present to Parking Authority commissioners at their next meeting, Wednesday, July 2 at 6:30 p.m. in the parking deck, 67 Lewis St.:
“We are at the mercy of the Parking Authority since the more reasonably priced surrounding lots have all been removed and no longer available to us. We hope that because the deck is now, for the most part, the ‘only game in town,’ that you would not treat your loyal patrons so cavalierly. We understand $3 million were contributed to the City of Rahway by NJ Transit to allow for the deck to be built. It would seem that NJ Transit’s interest in providing such a grant would be to encourage the public to take mass transit as opposed to overburdening our already heavily congested thoroughfares. We don’t think that the grant was given to eventually price-out the average person who takes the train from Rahway and raise the parking fee to become almost as high as the train fare. This does not seem fair, good business or in the spirit of community, which the Parking Authority heralds on the Web site.”
The $11-million Lewis Street deck opened in December 2004. Of the 524 spaces, 209 are set aside for condo owners at SkyView. Through Tuesday night, Morgan reported 127 signatures on the petition.
Talk of office/parking complex near RSI
The parking lot behind the RSI bank on Irving Street (left) is being looked at as a potential parking deck/office space development, according to City Administrator/Redevelopment Director Peter Pelissier.
“It’s all talk at this point,” Pelissier said in an interview after the May 7 Redevelopment Agency meeting, with a possibility of trying to get included in the Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit Program, which aims to attract office space in proximity to rail stations.
For those counting at home, that’s a 524-space parking deck currently at Main and Lewis streets, and plans for a 324-space deck at The Westbury, a five-story deck as part of the Town Center project, and a deck at the lot near RSI would make it four decks downtown.