Garage plan would alter leasing policy
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A city adviser is recommending that Columbus continue its original plan to install already-purchased pay gates in the parking garage east of the post office.
Laurence Brown, whom the mayor appointed as metropolitan planning director in April, concluded after researching the topic that revenue from use of the gates combined with a new philosophy about how to fill vacant parking spaces, would more than offset the $143,000 cost of the gates.
That’s contrary to a preliminary estimate by the Columbus Redevelopment Commission, which concluded the city could lose more than $43,000 a year for the next seven to 10 years if it installed the machines, which cost about $67,000 a year to operate.
The Redevelopment Commission plans to make a final decision next month.
Under the previous city administration, Columbus built two garages to address a downtown parking crunch. The one east of the post office at Fourth and Jackson streets was built first, but while pay gates eventually were installed at the garage west of the Bartholomew County Courthouse, the first garage remains without them.
The city already has paid half of the total costs for the first garage’s machines, which are in a warehouse until the commission decides what to do.
Brown advised the Redevelopment Commission during a meeting Monday to do away with its leased-space system and begin controlling all parking-garage access with pay gates.
Going strictly with a pay-gate system would be an easy way to make any unused reserve spaces available to the public, Brown said. He said that would help alleviate the downtown parking crunch and guarantee that the city asset is used to its full potential.
It also would bring in more revenue, because people who use public spaces for more than three hours pay $1 for each additional hour, and because it would eliminate the need for human patrols to make sure the spaces are used as they are intended.
Under the gate system, anyone would be allowed to park in any space he wants. There would no longer be any reserved spaces, per se, except for a general quantity programmed into the machines to make sure people who lease the spaces have room.
Brown said an option in the future under this system would be to “oversell” the reserved spaces. That would mean leasing out more spaces than the 301 that are available.
“We wouldn’t oversell right away, because the demand isn’t there,” he said.
Regardless, at least 100 spaces always would be available at all times to the public.
Tom Vujovich, a former member and president of the Redevelopment Commission, said the old Redevelopment Commission during Fred Armstrong’s mayoral administration bought the pay machines because of a need to control the use of public spaces.
He said the commissioners’ logic was that the gates would more efficiently enforce the three-hour limit for free public parking. An electronic system was seen as the best way to do that, he said, because the three-hour limits expire at different times of day.
He said the cost of staffing a garage was deemed as too expensive.
Under the previous city administration, Columbus built two garages to address a downtown parking crunch. The one east of the post office at Fourth and Jackson streets was built first, but while pay gates eventually were installed at the garage west of the Bartholomew County Courthouse, the first garage remains without them.
The city already has paid half of the total costs for the first garage’s machines, which are in a warehouse until the commission decides what to do.
Brown advised the Redevelopment Commission during a meeting Monday to do away with its leased-space system and begin controlling all parking-garage access with pay gates.
Going strictly with a pay-gate system would be an easy way to make any unused reserve spaces available to the public, Brown said. He said that would help alleviate the downtown parking crunch and guarantee that the city asset is used to its full potential.
It also would bring in more revenue, because people who use public spaces for more than three hours pay $1 for each additional hour, and because it would eliminate the need for human patrols to make sure the spaces are used as they are intended.
Under the gate system, anyone would be allowed to park in any space he wants. There would no longer be any reserved spaces, per se, except for a general quantity programmed into the machines to make sure people who lease the spaces have room.
Brown said an option in the future under this system would be to “oversell” the reserved spaces. That would mean leasing out more spaces than the 301 that are available.
“We wouldn’t oversell right away, because the demand isn’t there,” he said.
Regardless, at least 100 spaces always would be available at all times to the public.
Tom Vujovich, a former member and president of the Redevelopment Commission, said the old Redevelopment Commission during Fred Armstrong’s mayoral administration bought the pay machines because of a need to control the use of public spaces.
He said the commissioners’ logic was that the gates would more efficiently enforce the three-hour limit for free public parking. An electronic system was seen as the best way to do that, he said, because the three-hour limits expire at different times of day.
He said the cost of staffing a garage was deemed as too expensive.
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