A Letter About Parking - By Andre Stone

March 14, 2007

Dear ________,

I am writing to express concern about the detrimental effects of parking regulations in downtown Tacoma. There has been much publicity in recent weeks about the lack of new commercial office space in the downtown area, and I feel the existing minimum off-street parking requirement is largely responsible for this dilemma. Mandating off-street parking greatly increases project costs, which in turn makes it more difficult for developers to realize a profit. As a result, developers choose to build elsewhere, and Tacoma is stuck without new office space that could have been used to lure new companies and jobs to the city.

Minimum parking requirements are remnants of misguided urban planning theory from decades past. Hoping combat the flight of jobs and people to the suburbs, urban planners decided that the solution was to make downtowns as much like the suburbs as possible. This usually meant tearing down historic building for parking lots and enormous parking garages to create space for the same number of cars as suburban shopping malls. While well-intentioned, such policies have failed to revitalize downtowns in almost every place they have been implemented, often leading to even greater urban decay than before.

In the present, many people now choose to live and work in downtown areas because they are the antithesis of the suburbs. Downtowns are designed to facilitate walking and public transportation, with a decreased emphasis on automobile transportation. Recognizing this trend, cities all over America have reduced or eliminated their minimum parking standards in hopes of attracting more dense downtown development. But not Tacoma.

Of the six cities in Washington with more than 100,000 residents, Tacoma’s downtown parking regulations are the most stringent, requiring more parking spaces per square foot than any of the other five cities. Meanwhile, Seattle and Spokane have both eliminated their minimum parking standards, and Vancouver, Bellevue and Everett mandate far fewer spaces. Ironically, while having the most development-unfriendly off-street downtown parking standards in Washington, Tacoma also has the only downtown light rail system in the state and a heavily used bus system.

A minor study was recently completed for the property located immediately south of to-be-renovated Luzon Building at 13th and Pacific. The property is 27,000 square feet and sits less than 100 yards from a Link light rail stop. For the property to be fully developed as allowed in the Downtown Commercial Core zoning district—a 40 story, 800,000 square foot office and residential building, it was determined that about 960 parking spaces would be required, assuming that 1.2 spaces per 1,000 rentable square feet of space were required, per zoning regulations. If each parking space takes up 400 square feet and costs $25,000 (typical per-space cost for a multi-level garage constructed in a seismic zone), then a 14-story parking garage costing approximately $24 million would be necessary just to meet the minimum requirements. If given the choice between building an office building in Tacoma, with its onerous parking requirements, or building in Seattle, with no parking requirements and for millions of dollars less, I think developers would pick Seattle every time.

The lack of office space was well chronicled in a January 28th Dan Voelpel column in the News Tribune. Voelpel quotes commercial real estate broker Eric Cedarstrand as stating that Tacoma “has lost out on an estimated 900 jobs and enough eager employers to fill a building nearly as large as the 25-story Wells Fargo Plaza.” Another part of the article mentioned a Fortune 500 company being turned away due to its inability to find a mere 17,000 square feet of office space downtown. A downtown cannot survive with new condominium and museum construction alone. We have to balance growth in those sectors with commercial growth. Eventually, they will come to complement each other, as workers will choose to live downtown as well as work there.

I wonder about the future of this great city if it cannot provide decent jobs for its citizens. Back in the day, Tacoma high school graduates could easily find well-paying work at Asarco or at one of the lumber mills. Today, Asarco and the mills are gone, and longshoreman jobs at the Port are hard to come by. What kind of city will Tacoma be if all its high school graduates wishing to remain here can aspire to is a minimum wage job at Tacoma Mall? UPS, PLU and UWT will continue to churn out talented graduates, but what good jobs are available for them here? If Tacoma continues on its current path, these potential contributors to economic growth will more than likely have to relocate elsewhere to find decent work. As a member of the younger generation that will assume leadership roles during the next few decades, these trends are especially alarming to me. Is Tacoma going to be self-sufficient in the future or will it become just another suburb of Seattle?

If downtown Tacoma wishes to the continue its “Renaissance,” then it must find a way to accompany more commercial development. The demand is there, and as some of Tacoma’s most respected real estate brokers have confirmed, companies want to be in Tacoma. I feel that unless barricades to development such as the onerous parking standards are removed, the City of Destiny will stagnate and its vision to become a true urban center will remain just out of reach. Let us make Tacoma great. Let us put a big “welcome” sign out for downtown developers and future employers, and make it possible for future generations of Tacomans to thrive here. Let us adopt tried and true 21st century attitudes and get rid of these cumbersome minimum off-street parking regulations.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Andre Stone