The demise of the parking garage is supposedly at hand. With this controversial idea in mind, some property developers, municipalities and institutions are ruminating on life after its death. While the outcome of the ongoing revolution in personal transportation is far from known, today's garage builders are hedging their bets on when - or if - parking will die.
Why Plan Obsolescence?
Here's the premise: Autonomous vehicles, car sharing and ride hailing services are the future of personal transportation. As fewer customers drive and park, these alternatives will drain the lifeblood from today's parking garages, drip by drip. over the next few decades. Soon, the urban landscape will be blighted by the gray boneyards of empty garages. Ugly …show more content…
"But if the stair towers are inboard," says App, "the columns are on a 30’x30’ grid, and the shear walls are inboard, which is the standard office type of structural framing, the design can become inefficient and claustrophobic. The sight-lines are diminished. Short sight-lines are hiding places and tend to make garages feel less safe. We wouldn’t do that in a stand-alone garage."
App says there are hidden opportunity costs inherent in these design choices. You can make it work, but there are sacrifices. "For example," he says, "an efficient parking garage tends to locate stair towers in the corners of the building, but apartment buildings and office buildings want the stairs away from the corners. Corner offices and corner apartments are premium! So you either have an efficient parking layout now, with a mediocre future apartment building layout, or your modify the garage layout, making it inefficient, in the attempt to guess the highest and best use of the property in the …show more content…
However, for stand-alone garages, App believes in designing the best parking garage possible and let the future take care of itself.
"At TimHaahs, we believe that parking structures can be the catalyst for neighborhood development and become a crossroads, a 'people place'," says App. "A well-designed garage - and the surrounding environment that the garage creates - must facilitate foot traffic between the garage and destinations that are in proximity to the garage in keeping with the 'Park Once and Walk' concept. We also want to create a 'sense of place' that exudes vibrancy to set the tone for new development. By doing these two things, we also create a place that is not only safe but goes further and imparts the 'sense of safety'.”
Others are likewise approaching the convertibility concept cautiously. "I was speaking with my counterpart at another parking authority about this recently," says Gary A. Means, Executive Director at the Lexington & Fayette County Parking Authority. "We both have older facilities. Rather than attempt to convert an older parking garage into another use, we believe we would just demolish these
Why Plan Obsolescence?
Here's the premise: Autonomous vehicles, car sharing and ride hailing services are the future of personal transportation. As fewer customers drive and park, these alternatives will drain the lifeblood from today's parking garages, drip by drip. over the next few decades. Soon, the urban landscape will be blighted by the gray boneyards of empty garages. Ugly …show more content…
"But if the stair towers are inboard," says App, "the columns are on a 30’x30’ grid, and the shear walls are inboard, which is the standard office type of structural framing, the design can become inefficient and claustrophobic. The sight-lines are diminished. Short sight-lines are hiding places and tend to make garages feel less safe. We wouldn’t do that in a stand-alone garage."
App says there are hidden opportunity costs inherent in these design choices. You can make it work, but there are sacrifices. "For example," he says, "an efficient parking garage tends to locate stair towers in the corners of the building, but apartment buildings and office buildings want the stairs away from the corners. Corner offices and corner apartments are premium! So you either have an efficient parking layout now, with a mediocre future apartment building layout, or your modify the garage layout, making it inefficient, in the attempt to guess the highest and best use of the property in the …show more content…
However, for stand-alone garages, App believes in designing the best parking garage possible and let the future take care of itself.
"At TimHaahs, we believe that parking structures can be the catalyst for neighborhood development and become a crossroads, a 'people place'," says App. "A well-designed garage - and the surrounding environment that the garage creates - must facilitate foot traffic between the garage and destinations that are in proximity to the garage in keeping with the 'Park Once and Walk' concept. We also want to create a 'sense of place' that exudes vibrancy to set the tone for new development. By doing these two things, we also create a place that is not only safe but goes further and imparts the 'sense of safety'.”
Others are likewise approaching the convertibility concept cautiously. "I was speaking with my counterpart at another parking authority about this recently," says Gary A. Means, Executive Director at the Lexington & Fayette County Parking Authority. "We both have older facilities. Rather than attempt to convert an older parking garage into another use, we believe we would just demolish these