Greater City ProvidenceMoar parkings pleaze!
[alert type=”muted”]Notice of Regular MeetingTuesday, April 23, 2013 – 4:45pm
Department of Planning and Development • 1st Floor Meeting Room
444 Westminster Street, Providence[/alert]
Opening Session
- Call to Order
- Roll Call
- Approval of minutes from February 26, 2013 meeting – for action
- Director’s Report – Updates on the Thayer Street study and revision of Citywide Zoning
Major Land Development Project
1. Case No. 13-006 MA – 2-100 Harris Ave. (Master Plan Approval) The applicant is proposing to develop the subject property, zoned D-2, into a parking lot providing approximately 737 parking spaces. The lot measures approximately 174,575 SF and the applicant is requesting master plan approval – for action (AP 19 Lot 38, Smith Hill)
[alert type=”muted”]This is the site of the former Fruit and Produce Warehouse.See also: Fruit and Produce safety hazard (01/10/2008)
Yes, you can haz demo permit (01/14/2008)[/alert]
City Council Referral
2. Referral 3362 – Petition for zone change from R-2 to M-1 at 230 Carolina Ave. Petition to rezone the property at 230 Carolina Ave from R-2 to M-1 – for action (AP 58 lots 704-724, 726 and 730, Washington Park)
Major Land Development Project
3. Case No. 13-011MA – 225 and 230 Carolina Ave. (Master Plan Approval) The applicant is proposing to develop the subject property into a parking lot providing approximately 107 parking spaces. The subject property is zoned R-2 and will provide parking for an industrial business to the north located in an M-1 zone. The combined area of all the lots is approximately 45,360 SF. The applicant will apply to change the zone of the subject property to M-1 and is requesting master plan approval – for action (AP 58 lots 704-724, 726 and 730, Washington Park)
Adjournment
[alert type=”muted”]Agenda [/alert]
What average person is going to park at the former Fruit and Produce Warehouse site and where is that person going after they leave their car, then, are there really 700+ of those people?
Most mall goers will not gladly suffer that walk, the 903 has parking, as does the Foundry. BCBS and GTECH employees? Again, I think most would balk, especially during the winter when it is dark.
Another 844 parking spots?
Some modest suggestions:
to ensure enough cars to fill them, pass a parking-avoidance tax on those that walk or bike or use transit to go places instead of driving and parking. This should have political support from the people of the gas and oil industry too , making a powerful coalition. To be fair, those that carpool can pay a proportionally lower tax since they still need to park.
or,
tear down evey building in Providence and replace them with parking lots. At least then nobody could complain there was not enough parking and nobody would have to worry anymore about inconvenient Cluck stores, saving historic buildings, or hideous modern architecture.
Another idea: a statewide tax on surface parking to fund transportation.
MonetVan Gogh surely needs parking again, now that the empty lot across from them has been fenced in.In seriousness, there are people who do make that walk from the mall and BCBS to as far as the overpass for Dean Street and exit 22C, but I doubt that the presence of 737 spaces will affect them since parking on Harris is not metered.
Don’t forget the future extra parking over at the Fox building….
Seriously, I walked by about 600 empty parking spaces right off Atwells the other day yet no one going to the stores and restaurants had access to a space to park.
I am starting to think that the city needs to pass a a surface lot tax which has a public access discount.
If enough parking spaces are created behind the mall, maybe the silver top diner will magically reappear.
I want Harris to be a bike greenway.
transportprovidence.blogspot.com/harris-ave-next-greenway
A parking lot would ruin that idea. No new parking!
Sorry, that link was bad. This is it.
http://transportprovidence.blogspot.com/2013/03/harris-avenue-next-greenway.html
But we could use this as a counter-proposal, to show that there are other things that can be done with Harris Ave.
Too bad when they revised downtown zoning, D1 was changed to not allow surface parking lots as principal use, but they didn’t change D2.
counter proposals are a good idea.. especially something visually appealing and cheap to do. wouldn’t hurt
But building a bike lane on Harris Avenue is not an alternate proposal to building a parking lot on this site. An alternate proposal would be something else, besides a parking lot built on this site.
actually the only alternative at this stage is to say no. and encourage the developer to put something there. LIKE HE SAID HE WOULD to the STATE and the CITY.
I’m going to guess this will be “event” parking for stuff happening at the dunk and maybe convention center. Regardless. Call your councilperson and tell him/her to call planning and the CPC and say NO F*CKING WAY DO WE NEED MORE PARKING LOTS especially (This is important) on lots that were supposed to be rehabbed and reused as viable commercial space. BUT instead were torn down in direct defiance of the state.” Haven’t we rewarded this developer enough for all his transgressions?
I was really hoping a Target would end up there.
I realize that the bike proposal is not itself an alternative for the space that’s being built, but (as I’m sure everyone here will agree) having a central plan for transportation is sometimes the foundation for thinking of what *could* be there.
Has anyone thought of making them just build another vegetable market-type place? They could do something like The Reading Terminal Market there. With proper Woony infrastructure, you could get people to leave after shopping at the mall and go for tours of the river, go see the historic mills, and learn how the Steelyard produces things, while stopping by a place with different kinds of cheap-to-moderately-priced food, groceries, etc., etc.
Wondering what makes infrastructure “Woony.”
How about this. Life on Harris Ave and the feasability of building nice things there would change a lot if there were at least one new bridge across to Federal Hill that is not a traffic sewer with a gritty 18 inch sidewalk. The 903 is 1400 feet from Atwells Ave but no one makes the trip any way but by car.
Once more with feeling: Phase in a property tax that levies a high rate on land value and low or no tax on improvements.
That’s good question. 🙂
I might be wrong, but I was under the impression that people called the proposed bike path along the Woonasquatucket the “Woony River Ride”. So I thought people would know what Woony was.
That said, I’m not sure. Might be something I made up out of brain farts.