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A new 680-space parking garage just opened yesterday at the corner of Fourth & Elm Streets Downtown. The garage was announced two years ago as part of a parking consolidation effort. The Neighborhood Launch residential development located next to the new garage is removing several blocks of surface lots, and the garage is intended to serve area residents, visitors and Downtown workers alike.
The new parking garage rates range from $75-$135 per month. More information can be found at 4thandelmgarage.com.
Thank goodness. What would we do if we couldn’t store more personal vehicles on the most valuable land in the region?
Some of the Neighborhood Launch places don’t come with a parking space and it lets them easily have friends over. The street spaces fill up quite quickly.
John, it is at least taking the place of several surface lots like the article says..
and those surface lots are being filled with residential.
most valuable land in the region?
Seriously?
I think the neighborhood launch developement is great. Those city blocks had way more than 680 spots though. So there is going to be a net loss of parking spots in that area. Parking options for downtown workers will be reduced in that area. I wonder what the surrounding lots will do regarding price. Overall, I think this is great addition to downtown and could possibly help some downtown workers adapt to other forms of transit.
“most valuable land in the region?
Seriously?”
For $75 to $135.00 a month… must be!
Love that avatar Jergarr, haha
Neighborhood Launch is adding residence downtown but this needs to be the last of its kind built…building condos that sprawl throughout our downtown like the burbs is not going to cut it.. Lets think like other urban cities and not forget this is downtown..build UP not out!
@Urbanboi – You need to visit Chicago or make a visit back to NYC. Are the three-story brownstones in those cities “sprawl”? We already have enough of Downtown built up; we need to build out and fill in the still large amount of gaps remaining in our urban fabric. Remember, unlike other large cities that have various modes of mass transit any new tall building here is going to require lots of parking, which is exactly what we don’t want.
+1 Columbusite
@Urbanboi – You can’t build tall islands in the middle of vacant lots and expect people to be drawn to them, the low and mid-level builds the density that will drive our skyline up.
You keep thinking like that..I will continue to differ. I dont want the burbs coming to downtown and that is what I see..Neighborhood launch is catering to suburbanites to try and bring them downtown by building what we would see in the burbs. We all have different opinions. As for this type of project I could see this is OTE or German Vllage..not in the middle of the core. BUILD UP NOT OUT :) :)
Lets not fall behind folks..(oh wait..we already are.) As for better public transportation, we need a government where they build it without the peoples opinion otherwise it will never get built here. People are to ignorant on public transportation..
On a side note the new garage could have had retail space on the first floor.
Neighborhood launch is catering to suburbanites to try and bring them downtown by building what we would see in the burbs.
Who do you suppose they should cater to?
@JD3 – exactly! They’re trying to make suburbanites re-think living downtown and I think they’re doing a good job at it.
I for one am wholeheartedly excited about this development. For being in a recession its great to see so much investment (especially by private sources) in downtown. For some people nothing is ever good enough, but we need to be realistic. The money and demand just isn’t there at this point to build 9+ acres of 10 story residential buildings. They most likely won’t get built anywhere on a large scale downtown until there is a large demand and a lack of space for low level development. Economics and logic should tell us that we aren’t going to build up until we are mostly built out. The Empire State building wasn’t the first thing built in Manhattan.
There are faux-urban townhomes like the Lifestyle development way out on E Broad east of Waggoner. Townhomes there are also right next to each other, but it’s behind a strip-mall and parking has vehicles facing the homes, which is a big no-no in urban development. You’d think that when advertising to suburbanites you’d want to show all of the plentiful asphalt out in front of these places, but they hide it in the pictures they took, so maybe even though suburbanites expect it, they don’t like the looks of it. Anyway, it’s good you can see that this is an urban development since you said you could envision it in OTE or GV, but I’m confused as to how a development that fits in with those urban neighborhoods also caters to suburbanites.
Now for the garage I wholeheartedly agree on the absence of 1st floor retail and here’s why; Gay St needs a retail space on 3rd or 4th that connects it to Long St to encourage more foot traffic towards there for more new businesses within easy walking distance. Without that there is a gap between the two retail corridors and Long could certainly use a shot in the arm.
As for transportation it looks like COTA is heading in the right direction, but that’s another thread.
I find myself constantly wondering why the city hasn’t aggressively tried to add more rentals in the downtown area… let me rephrase that… more affordable rentals in the downtown area.. especially downtown. I think a big problem that some people have.. especially young people, is that they don’t want to commit just yet. I’d love to see more mixed use developments downtown that include garage, apartments and retail.. instead of just aiming for the suburbanites.. why not aim for the students too.. ??
When I was renting Downtown there were plenty of rentals in SE corner (Town-Franklin) where there are cheap rentals that are affordable. I was living in an efficiency for under $400 a month in the best residential neighborhood in all of Downtown. You won’t find architecture like that elsewhere except for Jefferson Park and that lone historic home on Rich surrounded by parking lots.
I can understand wondering why developers haven’t built more rentals in downtown, but why would the city be involved in building rental apartments?