City Council Agenda and Packet 1999 01 05

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parking is the most efficient in terms of land requirements. Accounting for landscaping, pedestrian ways and typical outdoor amenities, each parking space requires land area above that strictly provided for drive aisles and the parking space itself. Staff has estimated the number of additional parking spaces that could be provided downtown based on two different estimates of parking density -a conservative estimate and an estimate which assumes a more efficient parking lot configuration. The former consumes approximately 450 square feet of land while the latter consumes 355 square feet. The efficient use estimate assumes 100 square feet of land area per space will be dedicated to landscaping, pedestrian ways and outdoor amenities above that required by the space itself. For comparison purposes. the parking lot north of the library uses 530 square feet of land area per space and the recently improved lot along the railroad tracks at Spruce and Front Streets consumes 575 square feet of land area per space excluding the plaza. Both lots provide a significant amount of landscaping as both are in the core area and therefore have a more powerful impact on the streetscape. It is important to note that individual site and land use compatibility constraints will ultimately weigh heavily on the density of parking provided on each site. Staff has estimated the costs associated with providing additional surface parking downtown. This was done to enable Council to establish a reasonable parking improvement fee. Approximately $114,000 was expended to construct the parking lot at Spruce and Front Streets. This figure includes paving, curb, gutter, subgrade, landscaping, lighting, drainage and soft costs. Soft costs include design. engineering, testing and other professional fees and were estimated at 15% of the total hard costs associated with construction. Ten to fifteen percent soft costs are fairly typical in the land development trade. The cost estimate excludes the pedestrian plaza and related landscaping and other improvements directly associated with the plaza. evidenced by the cost of improving the parking lot at Spruce and Front Streets, per space costs were estimated for the following: 450 Square Feet Per Space $3,182 355 Square Feet Per Space $2.510 These figures do not include land costs. For comparison purposes, Staff obtained estimates of constructing surface parking from two other sources. A parking consulting organization working with the City of Colorado Springs estimates that it costs between $1500 and $2500 to build each space, exclusive of land costs. BRW, a consulting firm that prepared a parking plan for the City of Fort Collins' downtown estimates the capital costs for each surface space at $2000 per space, again exclusive of land. None of these figures reflect the additional costs of providing the other items previously discussed that Louisville typically associates with downtown parking facilities (landscaping, lighting, outdoor amenities, etc). As large tracts of land that could be made available to surface parking downtown are limited, the benefit imparted by economies of scale are constrained, thus further increasing the likely construction costs. 7