The Garner Street parking lot will soon cease to be a parking lot. When construction begins — potentially this month — on a new 12-story, mixed-used development at the site, its 108 parking spaces will no longer be an option for drivers in downtown State College.
While the lot is privately owned, the loss of those 108 spaces means State College Borough needs to plan for the impact on public parking areas. To absorb the demand into the parking system, the parking department has allocated fewer long-term parking permits in surrounding locations, and on an average day the impact should be mitigated, according to borough communications specialist Douglas Shontz.
‘The largest impact will be seen during peak parking demand periods during the various special events that bring visitors to our community,’ Shontz said.
Loss of the Garner Street lot parking is one near-term issue for the borough. But as the region grows and more visitors come to the area, borough staff also are looking at long-term ways to accommodate increasing parking demand.
The overall amount of available places to park a vehicle downtown has, in fact, increased in recent years. Each of the new and planned high-rises is required by zoning to have a substantial amount of parking, and that is mostly in underground parking garages. The development at the Garner Street lot, for example, will construct 313 parking spaces, for a net gain of 205 spots.
‘Most of the large apartment management companies lease spaces to tenants beyond those living in the apartment buildings, which indicates a surplus of private spaces compared to the number of residents living in the building,’ Shontz added.
Requirements for parking as part of the developments alleviate the demand for those who live and work in, and in some cases patronize the commercial aspects of the buildings. But they don’t constitute general public parking, and the borough foresees a future need for additional public spots.
A study completed in 2015 projected a 700 car parking space weekday shortage by 2024, and Shontz said another study will be initiated in the coming year to determine supply and demand.
The borough’s 2019-2023 Capital Improvement Plan proposes three potential parking facilities, all of which would be partnerships with other entities. As developable land becomes more scarce and expensive, the projects, if they come to fruition, would ‘take advantage of opportunities that may arise to acquire property and construct parking to meet the anticipated demand,’ according to the CIP.
Currently the borough has more than 400 metered spots, two surface parking lots (the 100 block of West Beaver Avenue and 200 block of South Allen Street), the McAllister Street deck and three parking garages. The garages include the Beaver Avenue garage, completed in 2005 with 525 parking spaces; the Fraser Street garage, completed in 1985 with 335 spaces; and the Pugh Street garage, completed in 1971 with 491 spaces.
Replacing the Pugh Street garage is one of the potential parking projects proposed in the CIP.
In the early part of this decade, borough officials thought the garage might near the end of its useful life around the time it turned 50 years old. But a study then found renovations and maintenance could extend the garage’s life well beyond that. In 2017, the garage got more than $2 million in improvements.
But the garage won’t last forever and renovations don’t address the expected need for additional parking.
A proposal in the CIP suggests a public-private partnership to build a new parking structure, with the potential to consolidate the Pugh Street garage and the McAllister deck in a single structure and allowing for one or both sites to be redeveloped.
Shontz said the borough has not yet determined if a new garage in a new location is as of yet a specific goal, ‘but overall we are focused in keeping as much parking available downtown through various projects.’
He also said a potential location for a new garage has not been identified and the project would depend on that and funding. The CIP estimates the borough’s share of a new parking structure to be about $25 million. Such a project is likely still years away — it’s suggested in the CIP for funding in 2022.
A more near-term project could be a public-private partnership between the borough and Days Inn Penn State for a shared parking structure. The current Days Inn parking facility is in need of major repairs and the borough is in need of parking for its staff and vehicles.
A feasibility study suggests a new shared structure could be built on the site of the existing Days Inn garage and a portion of the current borough building lot. The CIP proposes this as a 2019 project, but discussions between the borough and Days Inn ownership are still in preliminary stages. How much, if any, general public parking would be included remains to be determined, though a new shared structure could at least provide spaces for borough staff who currently need to park in other public parking facilities, freeing up some existing public spaces.
‘We are going to continue working with the Days Inn to develop a design to benefit the community and their organization,’ Shontz said.
The third project proposed in the CIP is a potential partnership with Penn State to develop a parking facility as part of an intermodal transportation center near the bus terminal on North Atherton Street.
‘This is something that has been discussed between the university and the borough, but no final decisions have been made regarding this project,’ Shontz said. ‘Again, we continue to explore various ways to meet the parking demand downtown and this partnership is another solution we are currently developing.’
New parking structures as proposed in the CIP are not, however, the only solutions the borough is looking at to alleviate parking demand. Staff and committees are seeking to develop other ways to reduce the demand for parking.
‘The borough’s Sustainability Committee has worked hard to increase alternative transportation methods, and the upcoming parking study will suggest and evaluate alternativesto the facilities recommended in the CIP,’ Shontz said, noting that the borough continues to set goals for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
‘[W]e are very focused on ensuring all of our parking structures are safe for use and exploring creative solutions to meet the demand of parking downtown, which is shown in various projects in the CIP. Continuing to develop alternative transportation solutions, and improving CATA service are other ways we can alleviate the pressure on the parking demands in the Downtown Improvement District.’
