Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation_Memos 5 4 09THE CITY OF DUBUQUE
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
Dubuque
All-American City
2007
TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
DATE: May 1, 2009
Parking System Supervisor Tim Horsfield is recommending the selection of two sites to
construct new parking ramps in downtown Dubuque. One would be a 7-level parking
ramp at 5t" and Bluff Street for a net gain of 478 spaces. The other is a 6-level parking
ramp on the north half of the parking lot behind tf~e Fire Headquarters Building at 11
West 9t" Street. Both ramps would have future expansion capabilities.
As you are aware, the City has long had a downtown parking problem. In fact, currently
the parking ramps have waiting lists as follows:
Ramp
Locust Street Ramp
Iowa Street Ramp
5th Street Ramp
4th Street Ramp
Number on Waiting List
196
213
8
0
In January 2008, the Greater Dubuque Development Corporation held a meeting with
downtown businesses who had been expressing strong concerns about downtown
parking problems. The City then conducted a downtown parking study that identified
the available spaces were not convenient to the need for parking.
Included in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget recommendation submitted in January 2009
was a new parking ramp to be built at 5t" and Bluff Street. The City Council held several
public meetings on the budget recommendation and a public hearing.
There are many reasons that an additional parking ramp is needed in downtown
Dubuque, including:
For years, the City has fielded concerns from existing employers about complaints
received from their employees about downtown parking availability and
convenience, which existing employers say affects employee morale and
productivity, and their ability to retain existing employees.
2. Existing employers in the downtown have said that the current problems with
parking impede their ability to recruit new employees to replace existing
vacancies.
3. Existing employers in the downtown have said that the current parking situation
restricts their ability to expand their business.
4. Over the years, downtown businesses have made the decision to relocate outside
of the downtown partially based on their concern about parking, including:
Advanced Data Com
McKesson
Shepherd
5. Other business have decided not to locate downtown due, in part, to parking,
including:
Sedgwick CMS
Medline
It is also impossible to measure the number of potential business prospects
Dubuque has lost completely due to the lack of parking in downtown.
6. Property owners in the downtown have made important reinvestment decisions in
their buildings partially with the belief that the City of Dubuque, the Main Street
organization, the Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Dubuque
Development Corporation will continue to try to improve the downtown parking
situation so the property owner can get a reasonable return on their investment.
This list includes:
Hotel Julien Dubuque
Prudential Financial
Northeast Iowa Community College
American Trust and Savings Bank
Cottingham ~ Butler
AI Urbain
The Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce
The Greater Dubuque Development Corporation
Dubuque Museum of Art
Bricktown
Duane Greenfield
Platinum Hospitality
Gronen Properties
Dubuque Initiatives - Roshek Building
Employer (or Employer's employees) and (ii) shall be provided for the full
term of the Lease, plus any and all term extensions of the Lease."
12. There is a significant amount of vacant space in the downtown that will not be
renovated at a great investment to the property owner, or occupied by a lease
paying tenant, without a solution to the downtown parking problems. This includes
such important buildings as the Fischer Building at 9t" and Main Street, Kirby and
Farley Loetscher.
13. Dubuque Initiatives has made the decision to invest $39 million in the Roshek
Brothers Building on Locust Street between 7t" and 8t" Street. Their 255,000
square foot building will only be slightly over 51 % occupied by IBM once the
company completes their hiring of 1,300 employees. Dubuque Initiatives hopes to
get a return on its investment that includes occupancy of the remaining space,
hopefully with further expansion decisions by IBM. This employer will not continue
to expand if their employees are unhappy with the downtown parking situation. In
fact, the IBM Agreement commits to exploring additional parking in the downtown
as follows:
"2.7 Parking. City intends to explore additional parking which will be
available to the general public, including tenants of the Building inclusive
of Employer, under similar terms and conditions as other downtown public
parking, and the City and Employer agree to reasonably cooperate with
each other in applying for grants and tax credits, including but not limited
to United States Economic Development Administration funding, to fund
such parking; provided, however, in no event shall such cooperation and
results thereof result in any material modification of, or diminishment of,
Employer's parking rights described in the Lease, unless consented to by
Employer."
14. New parking facilities are extremely expensive. With these proposed parking
ramps, the City has the possibiiity or" receiving a $7 million grant from the U.S.
Economic Development Administration and $5 million in Federal New Market Tax
Credits to help fund the ramp. This is only possible because the application for
the grant funds includes the decision by IBM to put at least 1,300 jobs in
downtown Dubuque. Any delay in the funding and construction of this ramp will
cause the City to lose the possibility of this outside funding source.
15. Businesses that depend on a large downtown business population for customers,
like Silver Dollar Cantina, Pepper Sprout, Bourbon Street Restaurant and Voodoo
Lounge, 180 Main, Bricktown, L. May, Salsa's and others, want to be able to stay
in business and they count on the City to implement policies that allow for
downtown business growth.
Steele Financial
McGladrey, Pullen
7. The City and some existing property owners have attempted to deal with the
downtown parking problem by maintaining and creating their own surface parking.
Is it a good thing for downtown that the downtown now has multiple surface
parking lots breaking up the pedestrian scale of the downtown, including surface
parking lots at 5t" and Main Street, 3rd and Locust Street, 3rd and Main Street, 5t"
and Bluff Street, lot behind Platinum/Weber Building, lot across from Platinum next
to Lot 1, Lot on SW corner of 10t" and Iowa, Pfohl surface parking lot across from
City .Hall, and Bishop Block Building parking.
If the City has any hopes that these owners of private parking lots will ever
potentially be redeveloped, the City needs to continue to try to provide relief for
the parking problem.
8. There are undeveloped vacant parcels of property in the downtown, including a
key vacant parcel between NICC and Prudential, which will not be redeveloped if
the downtown parking problem is not solved.
9. If the City has any hope that new businesses that are currently located outside the
downtown area will make a decision to relocate in the downtown, the parking
situation must be improved.
10. The Midwest climate makes it challenging to expect customers, as consumers of
commercial and retail businesses in the downtown, to walk a significant distance
to a parking place.
11. The City must and is looking at carpooling and transit options and making
alternative transportation modes, like bicycles, more convenient to alleviate the
need for additional parking. In fact, the City is in the midst of a one-year $75,000
Transit System Study. une current example is the Incentive Agreement with IBM
includes the following language for a free shuttle:
"2.6 Shuttle Service. City shall provide a free shuttle service for all
Employer employees who park in Port of Dubuque parking spaces or
facilities to and from the Building on a first-come, first-served basis. The
shuttle will run from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Monday through Friday except holidays, which times may be adjusted by
City if based on Employer's expressed needs; provided, however, such
shuttle service shall not exceed (in total) six (6) hours per day. The
parking facilities in the Port of Dubuque will have parking spaces available
for general public, including Tenant's employees, parking. Said shuttle
service is a material matter for Employer (and a material inducement to
enter into the Lease and this Agreement), and thus it is agreed that said
shuttle services (i) shall be provided by the City at no cost or expense to
Earlier this year the City hired Delman Associates to examine possible parking ramp
locations. This recommendation is a result of the information collected in that analysis.
I concur with the recommendation and respectfully request Mayor and City Council
approval.
Michael C. Van Milligen
MCVM/jh
Attachment
cc: Barry Lindahl, City Attorney
Cindy Steinhauser, Assistant City Manager
Tim Horsfield, Parking System Supervisor
Dave Heiar, Economic Development Director
Parking Division
830 Bluff Street
Dubuque, IA 52001
Phone: 563-589-4267
Fax: 563-589-4308
May 1, 2009
To: Michael C. Van Milligen
City Manager
From: Tim Horsfield
Parking System Supervisor
Subject: Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
This memo is intended to provide you with a summary of the various sites we
have evaluated for the placement of an additional parking facility in the downtown
area. As you are aware, the first part of February we contracted with Desman
Associates, a national parking consultant and facility designer that is partnering
locally with Buesing Engineers & Surveyors and Terracon, to assist us with the
conceptual design and site assessment for this facility.
I will provide you with an overview of all of the sites that have been considered
and also several attachments from Desman that evaluate these sites using a
multitude of criteria including height, costs, net spaces gained and impact on the
site. As we reviewed the sites, it is important to keep in mind that through review
we are projecting a
of current and projected parking demand generators,
required net gain of 900 spaces
.
The sites that we are evaluating are the options at the Fire Headquarters Lot at
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9 and Central, options at the municipal lot at 5 and Bluff, options at the
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municipal lot on Main Street 5 to 7 Street, the 700 block of Locust from Locust
to Bluff (block with the Knights of Columbus building, Radio Dubuque and the
surface parking lot owned by Woodward Communications) and finally the current
Iowa Street Ramp. We will provide information for all of these sites considering
both a 500 space net gain and a 900 space net gain.
Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
May 1, 2009
Page II
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Main Street 5 to 7 Street
Option 1: Municipal Lot Only
First of all, we evaluated the site as it currently exists. The site is simply
too small to allow for the traffic flow within the ramp and the footprint of the
ramp would be such that we would require a very high number of levels to
obtain the minimum of 500 net gain in spaces.
Option 2:
We then considered some options using the parking lot associated with
US Bank and also some options using both the bank lot and replacing the
bank building within a new parking structure. We also found in this
scenario, that the layout of the ramp using these options would not work
well and would have a very high cost per space to build.
Option 3:
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We are considering the possibility of a ramp placement from 5 Street to
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7 Street. This would include acquisition and demolition of the building
owned by The United Way and partially leased to Hillcrest Services. We
have had conversations with representatives from The United Way and
those conversations continue regarding possible relocation possibilities.
As we continued to develop the potential of this and other sites, it became
fairly evident that a budget of approximately $18 million would be the
parameter we would be required to stay within. In light of that, as
indicated on the attached spreadsheets, we viewed this option working
backwards from the budget number to develop a site plan. In doing so,
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we determined that we would be able to construct a ramp from 5 to 7
Street 4 levels in height, 20,000 square feet of retail/office on street level
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along 5 Street and Main Street having a net gain of 493 spaces (83
spaces in the current lot).
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Fire Headquarters Lot 9 and Central
Option 1:
We have looked at several options for this lot. The general shape of the
usable portion of the lot makes it a bit difficult to place a ramp. It would be
virtually impossible to span the top of the fire station with a ramp. This
would be very costly and would involve punching holes into the current
building to place column supports for the overhead parking structure.
Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
May 1, 2009
Page III
Therefore, we looked at placing a ramp on the north end of the fire station
taking away access to the rear of the building which the fire department
currently requires.
To alleviate that issue, we will add three bays to the front of fire
headquarters which would provide sufficient space for fire vehicles. The
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only access to the station would be from 9 Street. We found that the
height of the structure would be 6 levels for a 268 net space gain.
Option 2:
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Next we considered relocating the fire station to the south side of 9
Street. This would require potential acquisition of property on the south
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side of 9 Street. It would also require the demolition of the current fire
station, adding approximately 18 months to the beginning of construction
of the new parking ramp.
With placement of the ramp over the entire site, we would reach a 500 net
space gain with 5 levels and a net gain of 900 spaces with 7 levels. If we
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were to do this and in addition, span over 9 Street, we would reduce the
levels by 2 respectively to gain the same spaces.
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Municipal Lot 5 & Bluff
Option 1:
This option uses the current lot footprint and places retail options at street
level on the Bluff Street side of the structure. We studied a couple of
different traffic circulations and considering a net gain of 478 spaces we
are at 7 levels. Retail is not currently planned for this site.
Option 2:
This option again uses the current footprint of the lot and places retail at
street level on Bluff Street. However, in addition, we are considering the
use of an additional 75 feet to the north by purchasing the address of 605
Bluff Street (Mary of the Angels) and demolish the part of that address that
was added. We are estimating that this will reduce the height of the ramp
to 6 levels and 9 levels respectively.
Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
May 1, 2009
Page IV
Iowa Street Parking Ramp
We also evaluated replacing the current Iowa Street Parking Ramp. This ramp
currently has a capacity of 625 vehicles and is full. In considering this option, if
we are aiming at a net gain of 900 spaces overall, we have to rebuild the 625
spaces first of all. This drives the cost of this option up of course due to the high
demolition costs and replacement of spaces before we see a net gain.
As we considered a budget for this option, we found that the $18 million
projected budget would provide a net gain of 125 spaces and in order to see a
net gain of the needed 900 spaces, the cost would near $31.2 million.
700 block of Locust – Locust to Bluff
This is the block in which the Knights of Columbus Building, Radio Dubuque, the
Museum and the Woodward parking lot is located. In considering this lot, we are
aware of the historical value of the buildings in this block. I have received some
communication from David Johnson, Planning Services, regarding the building in
this block. Here are David’s comments.
“The K of C building is located in the Downtown Neighborhood Conservation
District. Demolition in a conservation district is procedurally treated differently
than a historic preservation district. In a conservation district, the HPC is only
advisory and the City Council would decide to allow the whole or partial
demolition of the building. The ordinance would certainly compel the HPC
to recommend no, but the City Council ultimately decides. Review of the
proposed demolition would include economic guidelines and criteria provided by
the applicant.
The test to determine whether a building can be demolished should, by
ordinance, be determined by the following:
1) Does the building have architectural or historical significance to the
community? If the answer is yes, as is the case with the K of C building, the next
test is;
2) Whether denial of the proposed demolition permit would prevent the property
owner from earning a reasonable economic return on the property. Basically, is
the building, or can the building be used for something.
Parking Ramp Site Selection Recommendation
May 1, 2009
Page V
In the case of the K of C building, this is also a difficult argument since the
building is in good shape and has recently hosted bingo and Knights of
Columbus events.
With regard to the option of preserving only the facade, my humble opinion is that
it would not make demolition of the rest of the building more
palatable. Significant architectural features are still being removed and the
context of the building would change. The attached Iowa Site Inventory Form for
the K of C building goes into great depth about the buildings architectural
importance as well as the buildings importance to the history of the City of
Dubuque. This building is on a higher level than most comparable buildings in
the City of Dubuque. The property acquisition, demolition cost and the historical
building situation makes this site challenging.”
In light of these comments, we felt this site was an option that we would not be
able to consider any longer.
Having evaluated all of the options listed, considering Desman Associates input,
total cost factors, available resources, demand generators, along with public
comments; I would recommend that we use a combination of sites. I am
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recommending the construction of a 7 level 560 space parking ramp at 5 and
Bluff Street using only the footprint of the current parking lot. In addition, I am
recommending the construction of a 371 space parking ramp on the north section
of the block where fire headquarters is located. The combined net gain for the
two ramps would be 746 spaces. The estimated cost is $23,000,000.
We anticipate that funding will be $11.2 million dollars financed through general
obligation bonds, $7 million Economic Development Administration funding, and
$5 million in New Market Tax Credit funding.
The combined gain of spaces for the two ramps would be 746 spaces.
cc: David Heiar, Economic Development Director