Bricktown parking Debate continues

[metro]

Man, I'm so sick of hearing about this topic. Looks like it's definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.

Bricktown parking debate stirs up

By Steve Lackmeyer
Business Writer
The debate over whether parking in Bricktown needs a "fix” is heating up again in the entertainment district, with a group of merchants backing creation of a Web site urging the city to offset control by a handful of property owners.

At least a half dozen merchants have told The Oklahoman they support the mission of the Web site, Fix Bricktown Parking but asked that they not be identified to avoid retaliation by landlords.

The site was launched by the Bricktown Marketing Group, whose director, Frank Sims, was director of the Bricktown Association between 2001 and 2006.


Who owns lots?
"One of the biggest misconceptions merchants face is that the large percentage of the public thinks the merchants own the parking lots,” said John Maisch, attorney for the Bricktown Marketing Group. "That's simply not true. Less than 1 percent of merchants have any interest in parking lots. The situation with parking is hurting the merchants as much as it's hurting the consumers.”
The Web site asks the city to review agreements with private operators who currently control city-owned lots in the district, arguing the same individuals control most of the area's private surface lots. It also provides visitors links to give their opinions to city leaders.

"We don't have any objections with parking lots any private citizen has acquired over the years. But we do question the city's decision to lease city owned lots to a private citizen who already owns a large majority of private spaces,” Maisch said. "If he already owns private lots and then turn over the keys to public lots to this same citizen, then the ability for the free market to flourish, for there to be competition, has been stifled. You have one entity controlling pricing for lots he owns, and for lots he leases from the city.”


Web site questioned
Jim Cowan, executive director of the Bricktown Association thinks the Web site is not a productive response to the area's parking concerns.
"Parking is not broken,” Cowan said. "What surprises me is that the people behind this Web site weren't better informed. If they did any research, they would have a better feel for what's going on in Bricktown instead of just doing something that's an attention grabber.”

Cowan said he welcomes a move by city hall to hire a consultant to look at Bricktown parking, and whether it's really a problem.

He acknowledges a survey ordered by Downtown Oklahoma City Inc. and the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority last year paints a grim picture of community opinion on Bricktown parking.

The survey, completed by Insight Market Research and Consulting in October but never publicly released, reported 64 percent of residents polled were dissatisfied with parking in Bricktown, and that 65 percent said they have trouble finding convenient parking spaces in the entertainment district.

The survey also showed 52 percent avoid events or activities in Bricktown due to parking, while 51 percent said they avoid the area because of the cost of parking.

Cowan said Bricktown has done a poor job educating the public that whenever they see a $10 parking sign, less expensive alternatives can always be found nearby — including at the city's Santa Fe Parking Garage, where night and weekend rates are kept at $2.



Agreement found
Don Karchmer has been in Bricktown since the mid-1980s and has listened to parking debates since the opening of Spaghetti Warehouse in 1989. As controlling partner of Bricktown Parking Investors, which operates several hundred city-owned spaces north of Main Street, he has maintained one set of pricing that remained at $5 even when the entertainment district was flooded with thousands of Big 12 basketball fans in March.
But Karchmer agrees with Cowan that Bricktown hasn't made the best impression with visitors when it comes to parking.

"When people come to Bricktown, people should know what they're going to pay for parking,” Karchmer said. "I've seen people start charging $10, then drop to $8, then to $4 or $5."

Karchmer said he's also heard plenty of references to free parking in Lower Bricktown. Karchmer thinks the public needs to be informed that merchants in Lower Bricktown are paying $6 more per square foot for that "free” parking. He offers validated $1 parking to employees of restaurants in the association, and is in talks with Cowan to provide discounts to lunchtime patrons.

Efforts praised
Maisch said he'll applaud any effort to improve parking rates in Bricktown, but would still like to see the city reconsider its agreements for city-owned lots leased to Jim Brewer and the Main Street parking controlled by Karchmer. Maisch said Brewer charged the highest rates — $20 a day in some spaces — during the Big 12 conference. Brewer, who is also a partner in Bricktown Parking Investors, declined to comment on Maisch's complaints or about the district's parking arrangements.

[bricktownlife]

Great article. Once again, Steve Lackmeyer tackles the tough issues. Let's hope that city officials will listen.

Jim Cowan seems real defensive in this article. He asserts the Bricktown Marketing Group is uninformed. It appeared to me that the Bricktown Marketing Group is relying on the Parking Survey conducted by Downtown OKC last year. They apparently read the Parking Survey that indicated over 50% of respondents refuse to come to Bricktown because of parking.

Jim Cowan wants to blame it on OKC residents: They simply don't know that parking is $2 three blocks from Bricktown in the Santa Fe Parking Garage. (Silly residents.) Who does Jim Cowan represent, anyway? The parking lot owners or the merchants?

If Jim Cowan thinks that OKC residents don't realize that he speaks for Mr. Brewer, not Bricktown merchants, then maybe it's Jim Cowan that's uninformed.

[johnnyboyokc]

man dead horse...............brewer controls one city lot, which is open on an event basis, Maisch is crazy if that one lot controls pricing for bt.............Take it from a waiter turned lawyer he'll understand........

[johnnyboyokc]

pay parking is in every major city in the world check out this website
http://www.colliersmn.com/prod/cclod.nsf/publish/0C03DB24F2A5EFDE852571B0006CC392/$File/ParkingRateStudy.pdf

[BDP]

Jim Cowan wants to blame it on OKC residents:

Who else is there to blame? There is parking ALL over downtown, most of it cheap, and some of it free. 50% of Oklahomans would rather walk through a parking lot than down a street, if they like to walk at all. There is no other way to explain it. I also guarantee you that 50% of the city, if polled, would say they avoid Penn Square Mall because of the parking, yet it is packed all the time.

And this is why we can't have nice things...

[bricktownlife]

Who else is there to blame? There is parking ALL over downtown, most of it cheap, and some of it free. 50% of Oklahomans would rather walk through a parking lot than down a street, if they like to walk at all. There is no other way to explain it. I also guarantee you that 50% of the city, if polled, would say they avoid Penn Square Mall because of the parking, yet it is packed all the time.

And this is why we can't have nice things...

BDP:

1. Have you read the Parking Survey?
2. We can't have nice things because OKC residents would rather walk through a parking lot than down a street?
3. Are you related to Johnnyboy?

[AFCM]

I would like OKC to do away with the whole parking issue by just building an aesthetically pleasing parking garage, conforming to district standards (friggin' brick please) near the canal. I know there's the Redhawks and Santa Fe Garage, but for some reason people seem to want to park directly on the canal. Just build it over a current lot and get rid of all the surface parking. I know it seems excessive, but it's the lesser of two evils in my book.

[SWOKC 4 me]

I would like OKC to do away with the whole parking issue by just building an aesthetically pleasing parking garage, conforming to district standards (friggin' brick please) near the canal. I know there's the Redhawks and Santa Fe Garage, but for some reason people seem to want to park directly on the canal. Just build it over a current lot and get rid of all the surface parking. I know it seems excessive, but it's the lesser of two evils in my book.

If they build it right on the canal then at least make some retail / restaurant space on the lowest level facing the canal. The street side and the upper floors should be a brick garage large enough to get around in unlike the current garage north of the ballpark. And yes, replace an existing surface lot with the garage and do away with some of the other surface lots right on the canal.

Secondly make sure everyone knows that this is a free or very inexpensive garage so that people will use it. There is plenty of free parking in BT that people usually do not even use because they either do not know about it or think it is too far from where they want to go in BT. (I still say that is obsurd. If you want to park at the front door then go somewhere else and support other busines throughout the city and metro area. If you want to walk and enjoy the BT atmosphere then go to BT. It's that simple to me.)

... And as the city grows we need massive improvements to public transportation and educate people about using it.

[JWil]

My vote? Build a massive parking garage just north of the U-Haul building, throw it in with MAPs3 and cap the parking price at $3. Let the tax pay for the construction and maintenance, with the $3 going toward some sorta general Bricktown Improvement Fund. Then raze the little lots in front of Spaghetti Warehouse, behind Bourbon St., along Sheridan between Chelinos and Bricktown Brewery, etc. Build it in such a way that traffic could feed in from/out to Reno and the new surface street.

That might not be workable, but that's what I'd like to see. Think about a 10-story parking garage on that footprint. That'd free up a lot of that lame surface parking for more development.

[jbrown84]

Clearly a large amount of people are not satisfied walking from the Santa Fe garage. MAYBE on 4th of July, but on a Sunday after church, it aint happening. So why not build some city garages on the surface lots. Downtown Santa Fe, NM has that and it works great. There is like ONE surface lot in that entire area.

[Tim]

Since we're throwing out ideas, howzabout we simply relocate Bricktown to Edmond. It solves a number of problems including A. Too many empty parking lots in Edmond. B. Edmond visitors can't complain about the parking (cuz there will be a buttload of it!) and C. I'm entirely too lazy to ride my bike to have beers at the Brewery!

[bricktownlife]

Clearly a large amount of people are not satisfied walking from the Santa Fe garage. MAYBE on 4th of July, but on a Sunday after church, it aint happening. So why not build some city garages on the surface lots. Downtown Santa Fe, NM has that and it works great. There is like ONE surface lot in that entire area.

I agree with jbrown84 on this one.

Jim Cowan can insist the Santa Fe Garage is a viable alternative for Bricktown visitors, but it's simply not. At some point, blaming visitors for 1) not being smart enough to know about the Santa Fe Garage, or 2) being too lazy to walk three blocks (after you've navigated your way out of the garage), doesn't get us closer to a solution.

Look at Ft. Worth (TX) or Wichita (KS). Both cities have partnered with private parking lot owners to provide free and affordable parking in their entertainment districts. The result: Entertainment districts where restaurants and retailers are enjoyed by both out-of-towners and local residents.

And one more thing, I'm not sure people who blame this issue on "laziness" or "under education" have really taken every factor into account. There are elderly people, families with young children, and out-of-towners who shouldn't be called "lazy" or "uninformed" because they don't want to park in the Santa Fe Parking Garage. (I've parked in the Santa Fe Parking Garage during lunch hour. If you haven't spent lunch ascending or descending that structure, then I'm not sure it's fair for you to participate in this discussion.)

[BDP]

1. Have you read the Parking Survey?
2. We can't have nice things because OKC residents would rather walk through a parking lot than down a street?
3. Are you related to Johnnyboy?

1. I just read the summary of it above and it sounds like half the people are ignorant to the other report that said we have plenty of parking downtown even for multiple major events going on simultaneously. My own personal experience bears that out. Parking is EASY downtown. It's the walking people seem to have a problem with and, for that, you can't blame anyone but the people who bitch about it.

2. Well, we can have strip malls, memorial avenue, and 7-11s. Granted, "nice" is subjective, but, yeah, the fact people won't walk anywhere is why they city is basically one big surface parking lot. Then, we get a nice area downtown and people whine because they have to walk or pay a little bit to visit that area. Again, that's the product of people's laziness, not because of any concrete infrastructure problem.

3. I don't know. If he can walk four blocks, I'm probably a closer relative of his than over 50% of Oklahoma City residents surveyed.

The problem with catering to the obsessed with front door parking is that doing so will simply glut bricktown with parking lots. That is what the rest of the city already is. The reality is that there needs to actually be less parking and more infill. Bricktown needs to reach a critical mass of proprietors to make it worth the 4 block walk for the suburbanites. The more we make it like memorial avenue, the LESS likely they will be to visit not more, because we already got that and it’s closer to them. It seems counter intuitive to the old guard, but the reality is that you have to make it more worth it to these people and when they say parking is a hassle, what they mean is that there is not enough about bricktown that makes it worth it for them to walk a little bit more than they do in their daily lives.

And, of course, there will always be people who won't walk or pay for parking period and THAT'S FINE. But bricktown should not bend over backwards for those people, because 1) they will never satisfy them without completely wrecking what bricktown is and what it could be and 2) it would completely eliminate any of the competitive advantage the area has and they would lose the other 50% of OKC residents, plus out of towners, that go there because precisely because it's NOT just on big parking lot.

[Midtowner]

I personally don't even accept the premise of the debate. I don't think there's a problem with parking in Bricktown. The fact is that every time, even at the most peak times in Bricktown, I can find parking -- no problem. If I'm with other guys, I generally park either on the street somewhere for free or in one of the Lower Bricktown lots for free. If I have a woman with heels (or women) in the car, I pay $5.00 or $8.00 for parking. It's no big deal really.

Considering the sorts of tabs I run up at the local Bricktown establishments, the money I pay for parking is small potatoes.

The mainstay restaurants of Bricktown and the clubs are always going to be fine regardless of the parking situation.

Everything is fine. At first, I had a problem with the way the lots were being managed, but when you consider what the owners of those lots have put into the development of Bricktown, they are entitled to have the opportunity to make money off of their investments.

Without guys like Jim Brewer, Bricktown simply wouldn't be what it is today.

[Luke]

Agreed, Midtowner.

Here's the key quote of that article, in my opinion:

But we do question the city's decision to lease city owned lots to a private citizen who already owns a large majority of private spaces,” Maisch said. "If he already owns private lots and then turn over the keys to public lots to this same citizen, then the ability for the free market to flourish, for there to be competition, has been stifled. You have one entity controlling pricing for lots he owns, and for lots he leases from the city.”

Well, I'm assuming everyone had a fair shot at leasing the lot(s) in question. If they didn't jump for it and he did, I'd say he's a good businessman!

There is no parking problem in Bricktown.

[johnnyboyokc]

first of all the only city lot leased by brewer is across from the courtyard......which has no bearing on price around bt merchants ......i wish i was related to bdp because he is a great business man.........Frank or Maishe (however you spell waiter) all the lots that matter are privatially owned (can i say personal vendetta) .........the only lot is across from the courtyard and that should be $40 in a super bowl city...........i was a t-shirt salesman once......love life rev run

[metro]

Here's more proof that there IS NOT A PARKING PROBLEM in Bricktown. My wife and I went to the Redhawks game last night and arrived about 30 minutes after the game had started (meaning more people should have been in btown by then). Secondly, there was the Rascal Flatt's concert at the Ford Center which to my knowledge was sold out. I didn't even have to drive around at all, there were two meter spaces open right on Sheridan just east of the Melting Pot. I didn't have to drive around a few blocks to find an open free spot, or pay $5 to park. Simple as that.

[Mike]

We have a local business south of reno and some of us eat out daily for lunch. We usually drive to the meridian locations due to free parking. It is silly to pay to park and then pay to eat.

Parking garages away from bricktown! Do out of state guests or singles feel safe walking to them or inside the garages.

[Midtowner]

Mike, we just hosted a family reunion in which around 40 cousins participated. One of our dinners was at Zio's in Bricktown. This was during the night of the Rascal Flats concert. The folks from Houston and Southern California parked right next to the restaurant, did not complain one bit about the parking, and immediately fell in love with Oklahoma City.

I think one of my Southern Cal cousins was (or is) seriously considering a move to OKC after seeing the quality of life we offered as well as the cost of property.

[dalelakin]

If there are signs that state free parking at metered spots I have surely missed them. If there are not why is it a "hidden" secret that the meters are not active in the evening? In Indianapolis it is well marked and I can remember periodically hearing commercials on the radio from the city promoting free parking at the metered spots after 6PM. I didn't know it about it until I read it on this forum. If this were conveyed to our out of town guests and for crying out loud switch one or 2 of the current surface lots to parking garages and the debate would be over...

[johnnyboyokc]

if the surface lots were converted to garages there would still be a charge

[Midtowner]

If there are signs that state free parking at metered spots I have surely missed them. If there are not why is it a "hidden" secret that the meters are not active in the evening? In Indianapolis it is well marked and I can remember periodically hearing commercials on the radio from the city promoting free parking at the metered spots after 6PM. I didn't know it about it until I read it on this forum. If this were conveyed to our out of town guests and for crying out loud switch one or 2 of the current surface lots to parking garages and the debate would be over...

If you look inside the meters, the meters will tell you when they're active.

[dalelakin]

If you look inside the meters, the meters will tell you when they're active.

So why isn't it promoted that they are inactive?

[Midtowner]

Daleakin.. for whatever reason, I'm glad the free meter thing is not advertised. I guess it just pays to read the signs. Why would the city pay money to promote something which will cost it and its business partners money?

[dalelakin]

How would it cost them money?


By the city promoting its free parking and letting out of town guests know where and how to obtain free parking our guests don't feel obligated to park in one of the surface lots. Causing some to come away with the perception that parking in Bricktown is a ripoff. By changing this perception be it ill conceived or not will amount in even further increased traffic for the area spurring even further development.

I personally don't have issue with the parking as it stands outside of the fact that there is just to much surface lot area and some of them are just poor excuses for parking lots. Very difficult to get in and out of and generally don't have a "safe" feeling to them. I am not opposed to pay to park shoot some of the events in Indy it is not unheard of to have to pay $25-30 for the prime spots.. If that is what you want is a prime spot pay for it. Just give me the option of a relatively close(3-4 blocks) garage for $5-10 garage and I will be happy.