Holiday Parking - Counting peak demand

[TheArtist]

Isn't that area still subject to severe dampness occasionally.  I wouldn't invest there.

I cannot argue the income per acre to the city but at what level do you discourage business due to cost.  Artist, how much more rent could you afford for your business if taxes severely increased your landlord's cost?  (No $, just a percentage.)  There is a thing called diminishing returns.  I don't know that we are there but the concept exists.

Since I just moved and the rent is higher than the last place and its a larger space to boot... jury will be out on whether I can afford it as is lol.  The main thing is traffic.  I need pedestrian traffic.  When we get people in the store they rave about it and love it and we make sales.  Decent pedestrian traffic on a moderate urban retail street could easily be about 5,000 people a day.  I would guess we are lucky to get a couple hundred or so walking by on average.  I could handle a whole heck of a lot more taxes if we had normal urban pedestrian traffic. 

Looking at some pedestrian count examples, many streets in NYC can reach over 100,000 people per day.

Minneapolis
Top Walking Locations (estimated daily traffic):
1. Nicollet Mall north of 7th St S (20,320)
2. Washington Ave SE west of Union St SE (19,990) 3. Washington Ave SE Bridge (19,710)
4. 6th St S east of Nicollet Mall (13,270)
5. Oak St SE south of Washington Ave SE (10,650)

Denver 16th Street Mall
Mid-day Count   4,953
Evening Count   3,560
Est. Daily Activity   29,604
Est. Monthly Activity  986,933
Est. Yearly Activity   12,336,666


Portland 2011 counts
CBD/ Retail Core (6th & Pine) 8,014
CBD/ Retail Core (4th & Pine) 5,566

Long Beach
Pedestrian Count Highlights

Daily weekday average of 25,115 pedestrians at 10 locations.
Daily weekend average of 20,319 pedestrians at 8 locations.

[Red Arrow]

Since I just moved and the rent is higher than the last place and its a larger space to boot... jury will be out on whether I can afford it as is lol.  The main thing is traffic.  I need pedestrian traffic. 

Thank you for your insight.  I wish you the best of luck.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I just wrote a paper on this:

Tulsa is roughly three times the physical size it was in 1970.
It's population has been roughly stagnant since then
It has continued to sprawl rapidly despite little actual population growth
This has been made possible because of our heavy subsidization of private development and automobile/utilities infrastructure
It now has enough roadway to stretch from Tulsa to the East Coast to the West Coast and back to Tulsa
This is financially crushing and why Tulsa has perpetually crumbling roads



I have some graphics for this but can't figure out how to post an image...

Used to be a sign at 21st and Memorial through the 60's that said city limits and population 160,000.  It was way outdated by 1970, but that is close to the time they took it down....

[Hoss]

I think the size of Tulsa can pretty much be blamed on the huge annexation that happened in March of '66.  Sand Springs went and annexed about 110 sq miles of fence line, forcing Tulsa's hand.

On Monday of that week, the town of Sand Springs had unexpectedly annexed a fence line around 110 square miles, from 81st West Avenue to the Keystone Dam.  That action was kept secret for three days

I think if not for Sand Spring's move, Tulsa may not be as sprawled out as it currently is..which isn't really a whole lot.

You can read the whole sordid affair here starting on page 14.

[BKDotCom]

I drive by the Staples on Harvard nearly day.   Huge amounts of unused parking flanking the store.   Could have retail, restaurants, business, density, or whatever flanking the building instead.
And looks  like a house was removed for all the unused parking in the back.

Never more than 12 cars  in at least 106 spots.

Street View
and from above

[cannon_fodder]

I drive by the Staples on Harvard nearly day.   Huge amounts of unused parking flanking the store.   Could have retail, restaurants, business, density, or whatever flanking the building instead.
And looks  like a house was removed for all the unused parking in the back.

Never more than 12 cars  in at least 106 spots.

I live in that area. Midtown is my bike store. I drive by at least once a day. I often bike past or walk past.

I have never seen the front lot more than half full. I have never, ever, seen more than 3 cars in that back lot. I suspect from time to time employees get "reminded" to park in the back - and a few comply for a short period of time. Ridiculous to require that extra parking.

On the bright side, it is a great place to test ride a bike.

[Conan71]

I live in that area. Midtown is my bike store. I drive by at least once a day. I often bike past or walk past.

I have never seen the front lot more than half full. I have never, ever, seen more than 3 cars in that back lot. I suspect from time to time employees get "reminded" to park in the back - and a few comply for a short period of time. Ridiculous to require that extra parking.

On the bright side, it is a great place to test ride a bike.

Just think, instead of a medium box store, we could have had a mini strip mall with a California Nails, T-Mobile, Subway, and H & R Block.

The property used to house the Harvard Club which was a swim club we went to when I was a kid.  Seems like they also had a restaurant and lounge which is one of the reasons for the large parcel size.

Swim clubs were apparently a thing back in the 50's & 60's when they were built.  I believe it was also a way to get around liquor by the drink restrictions.

Blaze Ruins Vacant Harvard Club

A fire started by children playing with fireworks Tuesday

gutted the closed Harvard Club, 2717 S. Harvard Ave.

Fire Capt. Jim White said a Tulsa police officer driving

on Harvard around 1 p.m. noticed youths near the club shooting

Roman candles at passing cars.

As the officer pulled up to the club, he noticed smoke coming

from the building, White said.

By the time firefighters arrived, the blaze had worked its

way to the attic, he said.

"It was in a high degree of involvement when we got there,"

White said. "Once it got to the attic, it made it tough."

The children suspected of causing the fire had not been

apprehended as of late Tuesday.

Ten fire companies responded to the call. About 35 firefighters

fought the blaze, working in shifts, White said.

One firefighter suffered heat exhaustion and was taken to

Hillcrest Medical Center.

"This is a dreaded nightmare, to be working a structure

like this in the months of June, July and August," White

said. He estimated that the temperature inside the building

neared 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

A Tulsa Transit bus was called to provide an air-conditioned

resting place for firefighters taking a break from the fight.

The property, which according to the Tulsa County Assessor's

Office is valued at $470,000, is owned by lawyer Gary Richardson

and Jo Bob Hille.

"We were looking to build a new facility anyway," said

Tony Lombardi, a real estate broker representing the property.

"It didn't meet county codes to be a restaurant."

The Harvard Club closed in May 1991 after 38 years because

of financial difficulties. A club manager blamed changing

liquor laws, economic recession and a lack of member support.

Lombardi said he did not know what would be built on the property.

"We're still in the initial bidding stage," he said.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/archives/blaze-ruins-vacant-harvard-club/article_8760e142-205a-5111-bd19-2435bb33303c.html#user-comment-area

[BKDotCom]

Office Depot at 15th & Lewis is pretty bad as well..  The store faces 15th.
There's a completely unused parking lot on the backside of the store.  
The loading dock is back there.. but that's no excuse
The unused lot is right off of Lewis where something other than a parking lot should be.

The parking lot has the same footprint as the Sonic property across the street

Google Maps
Observe the zero cars in the lot during business hours  (not even used by employees)

[AquaMan]

That building orientation is hideous. Especially given that the Safeway that was on the spot utilized it so much better. It had doors on the north and south corners of the building facing Lewis. They deviated from their successful formula of utilizing the well thought out site selection and orientation of existing grocery stores and ended up building the same kind of structure badly oriented. OD is clueless which is why they had to merge with a competitor.

[PonderInc]

The Office Depot at 15th and Lewis is a great example of how things can be better thanks to our new zoning code.  (Obviously, there are many flaws with this building, including the lack of windows along Lewis, and it's poor relationship to the corner.  Also, national chains impose their own ridiculous parking requirements, regardless of the local parking minimums, so better zoning doesn't always prevent the problems inflicted by national chains.  But, as an example...)

This corner is zoned CH.  In the old zoning code, a 22,264 SF retail building required 99 parking spaces (1 per 225 SF).  Office Depot provided 80 in the "front" (facing 15th street) and 37 in the "back" (south of the building) for a total of 117 spaces.  

In the new zoning code, retail buildings in CH zoning get an exemption for the first 5,000 SF, which requires no parking.  (This is to help little buildings along historic main streets, and to prevent people from demolishing adjacent buildings/residences to provide parking they don't want or need). This means that the calculations would be based on 17,264 SF of building area.  And the new zoning code requires 2.5 spaces per 1,000 SF (1/400 SF) which equals... 43 spaces.  

There are also some credits you can earn for providing motorcycle parking, long-term bike parking, car-share or bike-share parking, etc.  So basically, this building could be served by 1/3 the asphalt currently provided.

Imagine what we could do with the other 2/3 of the land currently wasted on parking that we don't need.  The total land area is 81,775 SF with a 22,264 SF building on it.  If we only needed 40 spaces, that's about 12,000 SF.  Which leaves us with over 45,000 SF of land.  

That's a lot of little storefronts for shops, offices, and restaurants in what could be a walkable place.  (In Kendall Whittier many lovely storefront shops are less than 2,000 SF each with buildings that are about 25x75 or so in size.)

Big developers and national chains don't know how to do this.  But I bet a lot of local entrepreneurs could figure something out.

[AquaMan]

Ironically, that corner during the 1960's did have many little storefronts and a much smaller parking lot to serve them. 15th and Lewis was a nice little neighborhood corner.

[BKDotCom]

Ironically, that corner during the 1960's did have many little storefronts and a much smaller parking lot to serve them. 15th and Lewis was a nice little neighborhood corner.

I now work at 15th and Lewis.
It feels safer jaywalking across 15th or Lewis than to use the intersection (which has no clear stop line or walking zone paint)  and lacks crosswalk buttons (may have a button to go east... but then you get to the east side and there's no button to go north.. that button is found on the north side)

[dsjeffries]

Ironically, that corner during the 1960's did have many little storefronts and a much smaller parking lot to serve them. 15th and Lewis was a nice little neighborhood corner.

This is what 15th Street looked like back then, pre-Albertsons destruction.

Photo: Looking east from Lewis on 15th. You can see the railroad bridge in the background (where the BA is now).



Same intersection in 1961:

Source: Beryl Ford Collection

[Conan71]

Ironically, that corner during the 1960's did have many little storefronts and a much smaller parking lot to serve them. 15th and Lewis was a nice little neighborhood corner.

You mean on the north side where the Delman shopping center was?  Did that extend all the way to the BA or am I imagining things?  It seems the Apollo theater faced south then there were other businesses oriented along Lewis.  Am I remembering correctly?

[AquaMan]

The space where office depot is now. It used to be a small strip center with a men's store, globe or exodus iirc. And some other little retail spots. Next to Delman was a women's lingerie store we always chuckled about.