Copia’s Valet Parking Negating New On-Street Parking
As a follow up to my post from earlier today I ventured down to Washington Avenue to check out the parking situation on a Saturday night. Although parking is now permitted on two additional blocks (10th to Tucker) you wouldn’t know it based on the parked cars.
The block between 10th and 11th is full from end to end, a very good sign. It looks so much better it is a pity we’ve gone this long without it. But the block between 11th and Tucker is another story.
Copia Urban Winery at 1122 Washington Avenue is consuming entirely too much of the 1100 block with their valet parking. How much is too much?
Try 288 feet! (I carry a measuring wheel in my car for such purposes.)
Copia, located about the mid-point of the block, is 75 feet wide (per tax records). So they are taking away 213 feet of parking from adjacent buildings. A little greedy don’t you think?
Now I’m not going to tell any high-end restaurant they can’t have valet parking. That is a necessary function to please their clientele. However a number of their own customers could park on the same street if they didn’t block it off with their orange cones.
I looked through St. Louis’ ordinances online and didn’t turn up any laws regulating valet parking. The City of Clayton, however, has a reasonably defined law (no direct link, search for ‘valet’). They require a license and the city determines the amount of space the valet is allowed to occupy.
St. Louis needs to address the valet parking situation or we risk stagnating the very area we are trying to enliven. You don’t need nearly 300 feet of road to provide adequate valet parking service for a restaurant the size of Copia.
Back to Clayton, I’ve seen restaurant valets occupy at most two parking sapces — roughly 40-45ft. If we were generous and gave Copia 60 feet of space they should be able to provide for their customers without blocking traffic. Although if someone ends up waiting in a lane for a minute or two it won’t be the end of the world. The street is 50 feet wide at that point (yes, I measured that too) so someone could easily go around.
At the most Copia should be restricted to the width of their building. They have no need to take away spaces that could be used by adjacent store fronts or visitors to residential units above. As additional businesses open in the area it will simply be unfair for one business to consume so much of the on-street parking spaces.
Where are Tom Reeves & Jim Cloar on this one? My guess is inside Copia…
– Steve
RE: Valet Parking
Good observation. We have a similar situation in the CWE, along Euclid and on Maryland. Not certain of the best solution, but agree there ought to be groundrules.
J. Dwyer
Please clarify…
Has Copia claimed the park spaces themselves by virtue of putting up cones and a sign, or has the city officially designated them the space?
If someone parked there what would the consequences be, a city issued ticket? Copia calls a tow truck? Valet keys your car?
How about a Park-in?
Tony’s has the entire 400 block of Market for its valet parking. And since the NPS-maintained Smith Park is off-limits to bus stops, this means no stops on Downtown bus loop routes between the Pavilion Hotel and Adam’s Mark. It’s kind of silly to have two bus stops within 200 feet of each other on the 500 block of Market (you can see the two shelters close together, just west of Broadway on the south side of Market), when there are no stops for the next two blocks on Downtown-looping bus routes, like the mainline Gravois bus.
Why does an “urban” winery need 288 feet for valet parking? Even in suburban Clayton that is apparently too much!
If a lane of traffic is going to be blocked, it should be for a public use, like metered parking.
I had a pretty frustrating experience w/ the valets at Lucas Park Grille. I work down on Washington, between Tucker and 14th Street, and when I went into work on the 15th, around 8 PM, the valet informed me that I couldn’t park in front of the building I worked in, because “it is Lucas Park Grille parking only”… I blew him off, and parked anyway. I didn’t get towed, or a ticket, but when I went to leave a couple hours later, they had done an excellent job of squeezing me between 2 cars. The really intriguing part, is that those same valets put their cones out around 5 PM, almost everyday… aren’t the city meters running during that time? If so, are the valets paying the meters, or are they robbing the city of the revenue that would come in from people enjoying the OTHER establishments on Wash Ave right there, beyond LPG?
[REPLY – Wow, that is pretty ballsy of them! In Clayton the valets are required to use a private lot — they are not allowed to park vehicles on the public street regardless of the time of day. C’mon Larry, where is the valet policy???? – SLP]