St. Helens LID Approved (Again)

8 comments

• M morgan March 6, 2008

  Ok, there MUST be funding out there for streetcars. Flannigan? Regala? Darneille? Bueller? Anyone? Where are you?

• E Erik B. March 6, 2008

  From what we hear, Senator Derek Kilmer and Representative Troy Kelley get credit for the heavy lifting needed to get this passed.

  Nice. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

  However, it isn’t enough. Tacoma is forced to play double or nothing.

  Russell needs to be able to build a large office building right now and as planner (and Exit 133 blogger) points out, Tacoma’s current regulation makes that very difficult.

  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.

  I don’t see Russell agreeing to an effective 8 figure impact fee based on Tacoma’s 1950s era antiquated suburban building requirements which they have retained in the downtown core.

  Nor do the available building lots make this very geometrically feasible. (plus, who wants to look at a 14 story parking garage or try to drive up one?)

  Seattle permits companies to build the amount of parking that is appropriate and that the market demands.

  Unless Tacoma adopts an urban building code which other cities have, I don’t see how the city is going to be competitive.

  But that’s going to take some self evaluation. It remains to be seen whether Tacoma is up to the task.

• N NSHDscott March 7, 2008

  Great news on 6626. Great comments on the parking situation, although we’ve all said them before. Clearly, $24 million and 14 stories of garage is ridiculous. When does the talking end and the fixing begin?

  The market will take care of this itself. No company is going to spend millions on an office building just to shoot itself in the foot by not providing sufficient parking.

  I’m a photographer, not an urban planner, so take my “math” with a grain of salt, but here’s what I think about parking for downtown buildings:
  • You need 1 space/unit for small/affordable condo units, 2 for big/luxury ones. You can’t ask people to park at the T-Dome and take the Link home. This would be maybe 0.8 spaces per 1000 sq ft (so 1 space/1250 sq ft unit or 2 spaces/2500 sq ft unit), or 33% less than the current code as cited by Erik B.
  • You need 1 space/unit for hotels. You can’t ask visitors to park at the T-Dome and take the Link to their hotels. I’m guessing hotel rooms are about 500 sq ft, so that’s 0.5 spaces/1000 sq ft, or 58% less than the current code.
  • You don’t need many spaces at all for office buildings. You can totally ask people to park at the T-Dome and take the Link to the office, or leave their car at home and take the bus (or a streetcar) to the office. If people refuse, they can rent a space in an existing lot or garage. These are Russell employees we’re talking about, they can afford it.

  So what’s a reasonable number of spaces/sq ft to cover top employees and visitors? How about 0.2? That’s 83% less than the current code, and would require $4 million and 2.3 floors of garage, which might even be realistic to put under the building itself.

• N Nick March 7, 2008

  Why don’t we get this parking problem fixed? Who do we need to talk to to get things rolling? I’ve been hearing us complain about this for a very long time, yet it seems nothing has amounted from it besides more talk.

  I get the feeling talking about it here is preaching to the choir. Let’s direct our words to ears that can make something happen. Let’s start putting pressure on the city council. Let’s get it on the agenda for an upcoming meeting. Let’s all show up and voice our concerns. Let’s DO something!

• J Jake March 7, 2008

  I heard there should be a major change to the parking requirement by the end of the year.

• A Andrew March 7, 2008

  Jake:

  There’s a lot of time between now and the end of the year.

  Granted, it’s not like Russell is going to move out in 6 months or anything, but I’m with Nick on this. We should put pressure on as early as possible and not let up.

  Come on guys. Democracy favors organizations. So let’s make it happen.

• C Crenshaw Sepulveda March 7, 2008

  If Tacoma were to have half the street car lines it had before 1938 we would become an instant hit in terms of communities and places to life. An extensive street car line would transform Tacoma instantly. I say link all the colleges to start with and you have a very good start. PLU to TCC via UWT and UPS. Make a run down 6th Avenue and Robert is your mother’s brother. (so long as it takes in Trader Joe’s along the way). Anything along the street car line would be real estate and retail gold.

• R Randy Lewis March 8, 2008

  Empowerment zone designation goes back to the mid 90’s. The State had a process for designation, and 5 areas were selected. Spokane missed the deadline but had itself added into the group a year or so later through special legislation. While there was great hope for the zones initially, the state gave few incentives to the zones, so the positive impact was limited. SB 6626 is, by far, the biggest zone incentive yet developed. Besides Tacoma and Spokane, the other zones are in Seattle (Rainier Valley area and Duwamish area), Yakima, and Bremerton.