Monday, March 13, 2000
Garages, not lots best bet for our pennies
BY CLIFF RADEL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In Cincinnati, we must really love our cars. They've had the best view in town for years.
Since 1970, our Fords, Chevys, Toyotas and VWs have enjoyed an unobstructed river view from acres of parking lots along the shoreline.
Unless the county and city stop dickering and start doing, another 30 years will go by and our cars will still be the only ones enjoying the river view. Leaders at City Hall and the County Administration Building need to settle on plans for the riverfront. They must get this done before downtown dies and there's nothing left to develop.
And they must start with parking. Build garages. Not lots. Start soon. Not later.
Money worries
Last week, Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken had the courage to say he's “scared to death” the county is going to slap down a giant parking lot between the Reds and Bengals stadiums.
“They have a money problem. So, they're talking a different language,” the mayor told me. “Now, they're talking about surface parking. That was not in the lexicon a few months ago.”
The mayor fears the county will run out of money building the two new stadiums. A money crunch would force the county to do riverfront parking on the cheap. The el-cheapo scenario would keep the parking lots on the riverfront and kill The Banks, Cincinnati's great hope for a new riverside neighborhood of stores, parks and apartments, built largely on top of parking garages.
Parking garages cost more to build than parking lots. A lot more.
“Garages are six times as expensive if you go above ground and 12 times as expensive if you go below ground,” said Brenda Scheer, an architect and associate professor of urban planning and design at the University of Cincinnati.
The estimated price tag for building riverfront parking garages and their infrastructures is $180 million. Stadium costs might keep the county from footing that bill. So, on Wednesday, county commissioners will meet to discuss their options regarding riverfront parking. (In public, one can hope, and not behind closed doors.)
Rethink this: Now is not the time to be penny-wise on this development.
That's easy for me to say. I'm not Bob Bedinghaus or John Dowlin, two Republican county commissioners associated with stadium cost overruns and running for re-election on a party ticket stocked with anti-tax and anti-spending insurgents.
The commissioners can score points with voters by building the garages. It will cost a lot more to build them years down the road. And surface parking lots on the river would kill downtown development. And not just along The Banks.
“Parking garages on the river are essential to develop downtown,” Brenda Scheer told me. “Without them, you can't build The Banks. Without The Banks, you will not have any riverfront development. Without the riverfront garages, downtown office workers will have to park in places that could be taken by shoppers. Without those parking spaces, shoppers will stay away from downtown.”
And so will retail magnets. Nordstrom won't put a department store downtown unless the company is assured a critical mass of parking places near its door.
Build as promised
When the stadium tax appeared on the ballot way back in 1996, one of its selling points to voters was that the half-penny on the dollar tariff would not just pay for two stadiums. The tax we all pay was to be a catalyst for riverfront development, development that included parking garages.
The county must move ahead and live up to the promises that got the sales tax passed four years ago. This is no time to pinch pennies, to act as if Cincinnati and Hamilton County are afraid of success. The region's future is at stake. So take a deep breath and take the plunge. Build the parking garages.
Those blanks between the two new stadiums need to be filled with a neighborhood, shops, stores, parks and people. Those parking garages are the foundation of our riverfront's future, a future we've been paying on for four years and still counting.
Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at 768-8379; fax 768-8340.
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