Examining Coeur d'Alene's parking situation

COEUR d'ALENE — Some people think downtown Coeur d’Alene has a parking problem. Some don’t. A new study will soon shed light on the subject and might even recommend action.

An update to the city’s comprehensive parking plan will be released to the public sometime this spring.

According to Coeur d'Alene Finance Director Troy Tymesen, who also serves on the city’s parking commission, consultants responsible for the parking plan study in 2007 are examining the present downtown parking situation. This includes the area south of Indiana Avenue, east of Northwest Boulevard, north of McEuen Park/Front Street and west of Eighth Street.

"We’ll focus on what the changes have been with McEuen being done," Tymesen said, adding that Front Street is one location where parking has expanded since diagonal parking was implemented.

"The primary focus of this study will be to look at that piece of property where the old federal courthouse is at the corner of Lakeside and Fourth," he said.

The 2007 study, conducted by Rich and Associates, Inc., in association with J.P. Stravens Planning Associates, Inc,, found that downtown Coeur d'Alene had 507 parking spaces, with some pockets that showed shortages of parking with surpluses within a block or two of those pockets.

The study and its update, funded by ignite cda — Coeur d’Alene’s urban renewal agency — will give ignite cda and the city a better understanding of parking needs in the downtown corridor. In 2007, downtown's parking was considered "adequate."

"However, parking and adequacy doesn’t mean that the individual wanting to park perceives that parking is available," Tymesen said. "Parking perception is a big part of the convenience of parking. Right now you could park almost anywhere thanks to a large parking structure (in McEuen). The other factor that comes into parking, how far is one willing to walk to get to their destinations?"

Tony Berns, executive director of ignite cda, said "parking is a very hot topic" and that the parking situation qualifies as an urban renewal project because long-term solutions for parking are among the urban renewal agency's strategic goals.

"One of the initiatives that we have on deck is some type of structure parking on the old federal building block," he said. "We're waiting for the parking study to come back to make sure that the area that we've targeted on the old federal building block is the strategic place for parking."

He said the parking structure, if built, would be a couple levels and would serve Coeur d'Alene's parking needs at least 20 years into the future.

The old federal building is on the National Historic Register and would remain untouched, but it sits on a block split among several owners, including private owners, ignite cda and the city. Tymesen said the idea of a potential structure would be to have an entrance off Fourth Street onto a deck of parking that would encompass the lots not privately owned, "and you could do a layer below it and have them access from Lakeside and you don't have to have ramps," he said.

Tymesen said the other critical part of the situation is public vs. private parking.

"Private parking can go away with development," he said. "There's a nice parking lot next to the old Bank of America building on Front Street next to Crickets. That's all privately owned, and that all could go away if they highrise or lowrise or any type of rise.

"It’s kind of a balancing act of public ownership, not charging too much and the perception that there is enough parking when someone wants to park."

The parking situation impacts businesses and employees as well as downtown visitors. Jill Buckland, store manager at Mountain Madness Soap Company on south Fourth Street, said parking is the No. 1 complaint she hears from people, that they don't go downtown "because there's nowhere to park."

Her store and neighboring businesses lost storefront parking after the McEuen completion, but as of this week, the city decided to reintroduce several parking spaces on the west side of Fourth from Sherman to Front. The traffic is now one lane up to the Fourth and Sherman intersection. The Coeur d'Alene Downtown Association noticed a change in traffic flow after the park opened and requested to have those spaces reinstated. It was approved about a month ago.

"Before parking was here, constantly cars went the wrong way down this section," Buckland said. "I think the parking actually helps that because when they come around the corner there's all these cars parked the right way, and there’s only one lane now, so they can’t come down.”

As far as foot traffic, "any time we can offer more spaces, especially right in front of our store, that's a positive thing, I think," she said.

Overall, Buckland said one of the issues employees have with parking downtown is paying full price for parking passes.

"Even the owner of our store doesn't get a cut rate on a parking pass, and to me that doesn’t seem really helpful," she said.

Downtown Association Manager Terry Cooper said he encourages downtown employees to purchase the monthly Diamond Parking passes, which range from $20-$40 a month to park in lots such as the ones at McEuen, 420 E. Front St. and 301 Third St. He said when employees park in the spaces that could be used for paying customers, such as the 2-hour street spots, they are essentially robbing themselves of potential revenue.

He cited a Texas Main Street study which found that if a downtown customer parked for 30 minutes and spent only $5, each parking space could generate $20,800 a year in gross sales.

"If we could some way get employees and owners off the street, we would have probably 25 percent more parking for the public," Cooper said. "It’s hard on the service people who maybe work 15-20 hours a week and they have a car and really, what they try to do is park anywhere convenient for them, even if it takes away a customer that might be going to the same place.

"We need to work out something so that doesn’t happen."

Tymesen said public input meetings about parking in downtown will start taking place next month.

The 2007 City of Coeur d'Alene Comprehensive Parking Plan can be found at www.cdaid.org/Files/Legal/ParkingPlant.pdf.