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Page 14 — Office Properties Quarterly — January 2015
“T he way humans hunt for
parking and theway ani-
mals hunt for food are not as
different as youmight think,”
saidTomVanderbilt in “Traf-
Drive theWayWe Do.”
As the development industrymoves
forward and properties in the downtown
core are developed
or redeveloped, the
amount of parking
space available in
Denver’s downtown
is slowly decreas-
ing. This is due to
increased density,
site limitations and
new development
standards. But is less
parking in the urban
core a bad thing? As
a professional in the
parking industrywith
an urban planning
background, I don’t
think so. The parking
supply in Denver is more than adequate
to support residential and commercial
growth for decades to come.
While everyone wants to pull up to a
free parking space 20 feet from his or
her office door, the reality is develop-
ment of that nature is not conducive to
a healthy urban environment. Research
supports that “the common practice
of requiring a minimum number of
parking spaces to be attached to a
new development – a requirement in a
majority of American cities – can inhibit
development, fragment the city, and
make traffic worse by suppressing peo-
ple’s ability to walk, bike or take transit,”
according to Tom Breen, UConn Today.
The seas of parking available in the
shopping centers of AnySuburbTown,
USA, are doing nothing but wasting
land, encouraging automobile use and
disconnecting their communities.
To help combat the negative effects
of excess parking, conscious cities (like
Denver) have reversed these park-
ing requirements by only allowing a
maximum number of parking spaces
to be developed rather than requiring
a minimum. In Lower Downtown, for
instance, this generally equates to one
off-street parking space per each resi-
dential unit or 750 square feet of gross
floor area for nonresidential buildings
(to simplify a more complex Denver
zoning code). Developers don’t mind,
because when parking requirements are
reduced the total costs of construction
decreases. Keep in mind, the estimated
cost to develop an underground parking
garage is roughly $100,000 per parking
stall.
According to a September 2013 report
from the Downtown Denver Partner-
ship, there are approximately 44,000
off-street parking spaces throughout
downtown Denver and more than
115,000 employees. Some of these off-
street surface lots are either currently
being developed, slated for develop-
ment or available for developers to
purchase. While there might not be a
one-to-one conversion of surface park-
ing to garage parking when a site is
developed, parking is still being created
as more companies and people move
into downtown. In most cases, park-
ing is added to the new projects but
not necessarily the same amount that
existed predevelopment.
Infill development and reduced park-
ing requirements are healthy for an
urban core. More and more downtown
employees are using alternative modes
of transportation to commute, especially
young professionals from the millennial
generation, and these trends will con-
tinue. Driving downtown is not neces-
sarywhen there are other viable options
available, including RTD, B-cycle,
personal bicycles and walking. These
options have increased over the last
five years and will continue to evolve as
the city and county is set to update its
transportation plan next year and will
explore ways to help fill gaps in service.
Take a look at what other, denser cit-
ies like San Francisco and Seattle are
doing. Some new developments are
not allowed to develop parking at all or
are restricted to a minimal amount. In
both cases, the local governments are
evolving their parking management
approaches by using performance-
based parking and real-time occupancy
information to show drivers where and
howmuch parking is available at par-
ticipating facilities.
Performance-based parking is a
strategy that Denver could use to help
regulate the supply of on-street park-
ing. Credited to UCLA Professor Donald
Shoup, author of “The High Cost of Free
Parking,” the concept of performance-
based parking is to adjust the price
of on-street parking according to the
demand of each block. The goal is to
always have at least one or two spaces
free on the busiest blocks, in order to
alleviate the traffic congestion caused
by people hunting for parking.
To Denver’s credit, its Strategic Park-
ing Plan is helping the situation by
promoting bicycle and car sharing and
assisting private valet parking com-
panies, but more could and should be
done in the form of real-time parking
guidance (smartphone applications)
and performance-based parking rates.
Parking is a vital element of trans-
portation and land use planning, and
given our car-obsessed culture in
America, automobile ownership is not
going away any time soon. Discussions
by urban planners, developers and city
officials about the “dilemma of parking”
are taking place and will continue as
Denver grows, but we have more than
enough parking spaces currently to go
around. Private parking companies help
property owners and commercial devel-
opers plan and manage their parking
supply efficiently. And we’ve yet to see
the parking demand in Denver reach
a point where we have to valet stack
park at our locations to cover every
available square inch with a car, which
is a common practice in larger cities.
So regarding the parking supply in
Denver – less is more. Less parking
equates to more people using alternative
modes of transportation, which is bet-
ter for the environment. Having fewer
cars on the roads creates a more bicycle
friendly and walkable downtown, which
is better for pedestrians. And less people
in their cars allows for more social inter-
action in the public realm, which is bet-
ter for our community.s
Justin
Montgomery
Director of
business
development and
special events,
Douglas Parking,
Denver
Parking
Source: Downtown Denver Partnership
Garages and surface lots in downtown Denver
Real-time signs used in downtown Seattle are tied into an application monitoring
available parking.