Monday, August 30, 2010

Mandatory Parking

Oy.
On Midwood Management, the New York developer who owns the Paesano's property on Christian Street, and who is purported to be interested in taking over more of the Market: "Midwood wants to open a mixed-use retail and condo space there at the [long-abandoned] Ice House space [at Ninth and Washington], yeah. But the city challenged them to build a parking lot underground as part of the deal, a project that'll cost them plenty. I don't think they're concerned with taking the Market over. They got their hands full."

(Midwood couldn't be reached for comment; DiCicco says Midwood is downsizing its vision due to the dip in the real estate market, and now plans an all-retail space, with no parking, that allows for housing atop if the housing market rebounds.)

Hopefully the information in the second paragraph is actually operative. It would be absurd to require any sort of parking on that parcel.* It would either make it prohibitively expensive to build (underground) or completely break up the flow (surface). None of the existing structures along the corridor have any parking. There are municipal lots and plenty of on street parking nearby. More importantly, people actually, you know, walk there.

*building is gone, and is now empty lot.