Downtown Still Going Strong; Neighborhoods and Inner Suburbs Need Leadership

I got a call from developer Kevin McGowan on Saturday, you may recall the last time he called me was to defend himself over the pets issue in his own building (see post). So McGowan calls me all excited and thought I’d be interested in his news — super fast loft sales. I’m not in the business of acting as a free PR service to profitable downtown developers but as we talked I saw enough in this that it is more than a press release for his firm.

OK, here is the story. McGowan | Walsh has been unsure about what the composition should be for their three buildings at Cupples Station located to the due west of the ballpark (#s 7, 8 & 9). They’ve hung banners on all three for “Ballpark Lofts” but they’ve been looking at office use instead of residential or in addition to. They began to market lofts in the center building — #8 to test the market. They’d been taking deposits to get on a list. Saturday they asked potential buyers to firm up and pick their units — wanting to really see if the buyers would stick around or seek their deposit back. Well, McGowan reports they sold 57 out of 68 units — in just over an hour. Needless to say, he was ecstatic. This represents, he said, over $12 million in loft sales.

So I began to ask more questions. The selling prices were roughly $146K to $400K for square footage ranging from 750sf to roughly 1,500sf. Just a few years ago lofts were easily ranging from 1,200sf to over 2,000sf but we are seeing a shift to smaller units. McGowan confirmed the smaller and more affordable units are where the market it going. Still compared to other lofts downtown these prices seem on the low side but there is a good reason for that. Parking.

You see, McGowan | Walsh did what is called “unbundled” parking — a parking management technique discussed in Todd Litman’s book Parking Management Best Practices whereby a parking space is not included with the unit. Some rental units downtown have unbundled parking that costs extra each month but I don’t know of any other for sale loft downtown where this is the case, save for perhaps the Marquette building by The Lawrence Group. Anyway, buyers at McGowan’s Ballpark Lofts were given the option of purchasing a parking space for the tidy sum of $18,000. Parking is expensive to provide and it is good for people to see the real cost by not hiding it in the purchase price.

McGowan said that roughly 20-25% of the buyers decided against a parking space which, to me, is a very big deal. McGowan credits the MetroLink stop a block away for the buyers willingness to forgo parking and presumably a car. They do have a free scooter with each loft so perhaps these buyers are comfortable with transit and the occasional scoot.

While they are still undecided about the other two buildings this latest round of fast sales may push them toward residential and away from commercial office space. McGowan fully acknowledges the impact of the new Busch Stadium on the marketability of his lofts. He also gives credit to two unbuilt projects — the ballpark village and Chouteau’s Lake Greenway.

The area needs something because the most activity is the on and off ramps that intrude into the area. I’d like to see these simplified a bit so some of the land can be recovered for in-fill construction. Hopefully residents of these lofts will be open to walking, biking or scooting up to City Grocers, which will be moving to a bigger space in the Syndicate Building late next year (see Biz Journal story).

But we have a housing bubble right? Well, yes and no. The “Creative Class” have been seeking urban living options for a while now and downtown St. Louis is the only choice for such a lifestyle in the region. As such, downtown continues to see demand whereas tract homes in the hinterlands are stacking up unsold. The fact is nationally families are becoming a smaller and smaller segment. Singles and empty nesters are the norm, especially as the baby boomer generation ages. For many boomers there kids are long out of the house, they are divorced or have lost their spouse. They 4-bedroom ranch in St. Charles County just doesn’t appeal to them. But this doesn’t mean downtown developers can write their own checks. They are learning buyers have a ceiling they are willing to spend, unlike in the ‘burbs where many buyers will become house poor to own as big of place as they can get. No, urban dwellers want to enjoy life and need money for travel and other things often given up to afford the big house in the suburbs and the two (or three) cars in the garage. This is resulting in smaller living spaces — with residents getting out on the streets more often rather than go from the den to the living room to the family room to the sitting room to the media room when they feel restless.

Transit is a big factor, in my view, toward the choice to buy a loft without a parking space. This is also a factor for the conservative bankers to finance a project without a space per unit — McGowan said MetroLink was a key part of showing their bankers they did not need a space for every unit.. Sadly, we have very few places downtown where that remains a reasonable option. The development future of downtown is in the west area between 18th and Jefferson and into Midtown toward Grand. The near north side has great potential with the vacant Pruitt-Igoe and the largely vacant area between Washington Avenue and the emerging Old North St. Louis neighborhood. Getting a permanent transit option to these locations will enable developers to use vacant land not as parking lots for adjacent buildings but for new in-fill construction. We are at the key point in the development around the CBD and without good localized transit (aka streetcar or guided tram).

And of course the bulk of the city is not downtown yet it only gets passing attention. The inner-ring of suburbs in St. Louis County are as urban as much of St. Louis and deserve renewed focus as well to offset losses in population many of them are experiencing. Natural market forces are coming together downtown with the trick being keeping the “leaders” and their outdated zoning and thinking out of the way. The same simply doesn’t work outside the immediate downtown area — the neighborhoods of the city and adjacent inner-ring suburbs need strong leadership to bring good zoning to them. Unfortunately, with a few exceptions it is just not happening. Downtown will continue to strengthen while the rest of the region is going to suffer from our 1960s urban edge growth mentality. Meanwhile, other regions in the U.S. will continue to outpace our region in terms of population and job growth.

Parking Meter Study on South Grand

South Grand is undergoing a transformation of sorts, new parking meters. These are not just an update on the traditional meters. No sir, these are the latest in parking technology.

From the Suburban Journal:

The city is studying two devices, one by Duncan Parking Technologies and another by Parkeon. Both handle about five to 10 parking spaces.

In the Duncan machine, a person enters the number of his parking space when feeding coins or using a credit or debit card. A meter reader pushes a button on the device and then learns which spaces have time on them and which are expired. Then he writes his tickets on cars parked in expired spaces.

In the Parkeon machine, a motorist parking his car doesn’t enter a space number when purchasing time. Instead, he gets a receipt which he puts on his dashboard for the meter reader to see when he walks through the area.

So let’s take a look at both systems and see what we think. These are generally referred to as Pay-Per-Space (the Duncan system, PPS for short) and Pay-N-Display (the Parkeon system, PND for short).

Pay-Per-Space (PPS):

The PPS units are quite small & short, especially when compared to considerably taller PND units. They’ve put up signs to help you find the units but in this block the sign is a good distance from the unit. In other cities they don’t have the signs, you just know to look for the meters mid-block.

The units are pretty straight forward. With these you make note of your parking space (see below for how they are marked) and add money after indicating the space number. You can add coins or credit card but not bills. I guess if I had to make a trade off between bills or credit card I’d go with the latter. There are plenty of times I’ve had no change and only $5 or bigger bills but with a credit card I can still pay. Visa/MC logo debit cards also work.

The former polls for the traditional parking meters are capped with numbers indicating the number of the space in which you are parked. If this system is accepted, the number of polls can be reduced roughly in half as they don’t mark both ends of each space. Depending upon where you park, your number will be at the front of your car or the rear.

With the PPS system once you pay your time you are free to go — no need to run back to the car to display a paid receipt as with the other system.

I’m not sure what the Suburban Journal article was saying about the enforcement person pushing a button to know who is paid and who is not — the street-side of the unit displays a big red circle for those spaces that are unpaid. This makes it easy for parking enforcement to go down the street to see who is paid and who is not.

The PPS system does have some shortcomings. Basically, it offers credit card payment where regular meters do not. Otherwise, you are still working with conventional spaces — the ‘one size fits all approach’ even though a Chevy Suburban is nearly 6ft longer than my Scion (222.4″ vs. 154″, respectively). What does this mean? It means you’ll still get folks that want to squeeze in on the no-parking end and block the crosswalk like this SUV did by the Post Office on Grand. Without fixed spaces on this block, this SUV may have been able to fit.

Pay-N-Display (PND):

The Parkeon PND unit is much taller than the Duncan PPS unit. Does size matter? Well, perhaps this extra height might make it more visible to people trying to locate the unit on the sidewalk. The solar panel on the top gives a decidedly “green” factor which adds a certain hip factor in addition to being very effective by not running solely off of batteries. Jim Merkel of the Suburban Journal indicated these units cost roughly $12,000 each, quite a bit more than the other units.

As you can see from the graphic you are supposed to place the receipt on the dash on the driver’s side. Well, it doesn’t say driver’s side but that is what it shows on the image. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, that means that after paying for the time we must return on the street-side to place the receipt. If it gets blown out of our hand or off the dash it will blow into traffic. These put people at greater risk than if we put them on the passenger side as is the case in places like Seattle. The other issue with driver’s side placement is enforcement —- there is no way an officer can safely check for expired receipts via car or even scooter on the driver’s side. They really need to be on foot to check these, especially if the time is expired (or not displayed at all) and they need to issue a ticket.

Here is a close-up of the main information section of the PND unit. I just used my credit card to purchase a 2-hour receipt for $1. I went ahead and did the buck even though I was not going to be staying 2 hours, even with lunch.

The buttons are located just below the screen and information section.

Here is my receipt showing I am paid through 1:53pm. If we had these all over the city I could drive to my next stop and park as long as I was done before the time expired. However, some cities recognize this and discourage it by printing the name of the street on the receipt. Thus, a Grand receipt would not be valid on say Chippewa. Still, being able to take your time with you is very customer friendly. Besides, it is better to allow someone to take their unused time with them rather than leaving it on a conventional meter. As it is, I left Grand with over a hour remaining on my receipt but the next person that parked in my space had to pay rather than using my left-over time.

They don’t have all the kinks worked out of the PND system being tested yet. For example, an old meter pole was used to indicate paying at the meter with an arrow pointing mid-block leaving it unclear is someone can park in the 20+ feet between the yellow curb and the sign.

Nearly a year ago I talked with St. Louis’ director of Planning and Urban Design, Rollin Stanley, about these systems. He indicated he has been trying to get a test going here since he arrived several years ago — talking to anyone that will listen. In February, when parking was finally permitted on part of the two blocks on Washington Ave between 10th and Tucker, I had hoped this was going to be the test area (see post). But, the Treasurer’s office began installing conventional meters shortly after putting up the parking allowed signs. I called Rollin Stanley again today to get some current feedback.

First, Stanley was unaware the test units had been installed, although he knew it was going to happen on Grand. Second, he was unaware they were testing two different types of units. I don’t get overly confident about St. Louis when our director of Planning and Urban Design is not consulted on these things. I just hope he is involved in helping to evaluate the systems which the Suburban Journal indicated will happen at the end of the trial run at the end of February 2007.

Stanley is pretty clear, he strongly prefers the latter Pay-N-Display system indicating it is “more sensible” than other systems precisely because it gives you more spaces and helps increase revenues. Stanley indicated the small town where his parents live (and where he grew up), 200 miles north of Toronto, uses similar systems. He points this out because that town has a population of only 50,000 or so. The point? This is not necessarily a big-city type of solution. Indeed, I have used a pay-per-space system in downtown Tulsa.

Stanley didn’t have an answer for how to use the Pay-N-Display system with motorcycles, scooters or convertibles where it is not possible to display a paid receipt without it blowing away. He suggested I call Parkeon, which I did. I talked with Bob in technical services and he wasn’t much more helpful. He did suggest in higher traffic areas having designated motorcycle/scooter parking which could be metered on a pay-per-space basis. He indicated some cities have a small pouch that can be placed on the bike to insert the receipt. He indicated that many cities in lower demand areas simply ignore motorcycles and scooters as they take up so little space — that it is not enough to worry about. He didn’t have a good answer on the convertible issue.

I called my friend in Seattle and he said their PND system has a removable strip on the receipt that makes it like a post-it note, where it can be stuck to the inside of a windshield or a motorcycle windscreen. I suppose those types of receipts cost more than the basic paper ones being tested here.

These tests are being conducted on both sides of Grand in the 15th Ward (west side) and the 8th Ward (east side). I personally favor the Pay-N-Display type as it eliminates the need for numbered fixed-length spaces. This will allow more cars to be parked on-street which will lesson the perceived or real need for additional off-street parking. The increased revenues from this type of system and the lower operating costs (solar powered) should offset the additional up-front capital expense.

What do you think?

Railvolution Speakers Comment on St. Louis

The 2006 Railvolution Conference continues today in Chicago. Here are a few more short videos from national experts commenting on St. Louis:

Todd Litman:

Executive Director of the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute and author of the new book Parking Management Best Practices. Litman led an intense 4-hour symposium on Sunday afternoon at the headquarters of the American Planning Association.

M. David Lee, FAIA:

Mr. Lee has been one of the most dynamic speakers so far in this conference. He brings to the table an impressive resume: a partner in the architecture & planning firm Stull and Lee as well as an Adjunct Professor at Harvard. He has been doing work this summer in New Orleans:

Harriet Tregoning:

Ms. Tregoning is the Executive Director of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute in Washington D.C., but is originally from the St. Louis region.

The conference includes a session this morning looking at over 30 funding initiatives that were on ballots around the country yesterday. This will be interesting to see as we in the St. Louis region (at least city & county) will be asked in the near future for a tax increase to help fund operations & expansion for Metro (light rail & bus operations).

[Note: The videos stop before the end credits but you can see all of each commenter. I will fix this tomorrow as well as the spelling of Harriet Tregoning’s first name on the open credits. But, today I’m heading back to the conference and then driving back to St. Louis. Yes, I drove my car because it was a last minute decision to attend this conference plus I am picking up stuff at Ikea — I get nearly 40mpg so it is not so bad.]

Valet Video: Cones & Sign in Bike Lane

The valets were out in full force tonight: Central West End, Midtown, Washington Avenue, Downtown, Lafayette Square. In the CWE they had cones running around the new fountain on Maryland Plaza — some event or new venue in the courtyard space behind Design Within Reach (the new rooftop place?). Cones also blocked off various empty spaces on both sides of the street. Also across the street and to the east were more cones and a sign at Bar Italia. And a few doors east of there cones blocked spaces for Sub Zero on Euclid. I didn’t stop.

I did, however, stop at Dante’s on Olive just west of Compton. Here the valet company was taking numerous spaces but the real offense was the placement of their valet sign and cones within the bike lane. Cyclists, especially those doing so at night have many things to worry about (such as drunk drivers) they don’t need to have an obstacle course placed in their path.

Here is short video (under a minute):

I actually talked to the very courteous and professional valets as well as a patron of the bar that said he was a buddy of the owner. The valets, as I said, were professional. The owner’s buddy couldn’t believe I cared about this issue and was razzing me but in the end we actually had a series of conversations that were very pleasant. He was really funny too, great sense of humor. While I was there I noticed many people arriving, most on foot (presumably not wanting to pay $5 to park when they could just walk a block). The crowd was really diverse in age and appearance which made me think this might be a cool place to hang out some evening.

Just a block east on the south side of Olive ‘The Loft’ also had a sign in the middle of the bike lane. All the usual suspects downtown had cones out although many on Washington Ave no longer had them on the street. Over on Locust Ten14 had cones everywhere around 11:15pm. They had a long line to get in the door, not sure if folks who valet get preference for entrance or if you valet then wait in line. The new place downtown, Dolce, had cones on two blocks of Broadway and adjacent to the new Marquette lofts.

Aldermen are now looking into this issue and hopefully will come up with a workable ordinance in the next month or so.

Copia’s Valet vs. St. Louis Fire Department

Sometimes I have really good timing. Tonight was one of those times. However, I didn’t have my camera with me to capture the event. It just so happened I was walking back to my car (at 14th & Washington) after having dinner at 10th Street Italian (between Washington & St. Charles). Anyway, I was walking along cursing myself for not having my camera with me. I pass by Copia and see two cars running, lights on and not a person in sight. No valet, no customer. Just a Lexus and Saab running. I keep walking, debating if my camera phone is worthwhile but I decide to let it go. As I get to the corner at Tucker I look back and see a Fire Department SUV has pulled up in front of Copia. After crossing the Tucker I see it has it’s lights on.

Curious and heading to City Grocers anyway, I drove past Copia to see if I could figure out the problem. First, a bit of background. In the last couple of weeks, since my popular video has been out, Copia’s valets have been parking cars on the street rather than leaving all the space empty. It is a start. While I’d prefer to have most of the spaces open for the public I’d rather see them park cars there than leave the space looking desolate. But it looks as though they parked one vehicle where they should not — directly in a no-parking zone in front of a fire hydrant, directly in front of the restaurant. I was able to go around the block and come back on Washington as the valet finally got the keys for the vehicle (an SUV of course) as he moved it from the spot. For a good 5-10 minutes Copia had a fire vehicle in front of their place with the lights flashing, I’m sure the patrons were wondering what was going on. Just another day with Copia and valet parking….