Management Company to Look at Parking
By Robin Vinci | Editor at May 12, 2024 | 6:00 pm | Print
Eighteen years ago the City did a parking study. Much has changed since then.
This City Council Wednesday night approved hiring Desman Design Management (DDM) of Rocky Hill to determine future City parking demands expected to be obtained at parking garages and on-street locations. DDM is a national specialist in parking planning, design and restoration.
“As we talk about leasing parking garages to a maintenance company to save money, we need to have a better understanding of what we actually own,” said Mayor Erin Stewart. “What is its value. How many parking spaces do we have and what is the revenue we are collecting on an annual basis?”
DDM is the same company that did the last study of the garages for the City in 1998. The firm will conduct observations of parking spaces owned by the City both on and off of City streets during peak and off peak hours to assess and validate the degree to which existing parking is being consumed.
It will prepare a summary of the assessment which will document the age, space capacity, physical appearance, parking access and revenue control equipment. Desman Design Management will then collect, organize and document current parking revenue received by the City for each parking garage and city street meters for the last five years. They will then also collect, organize and document the current and historical operating expenses for each of the existing parking garages and city street meters for the last five years.
The study will take about 90 days to complete.
This will tie-in with a separate study done by William Blair who is taking care of the financial end of the study.
“We want to know the nuts and bolts of the operation,” said Stewart. “But they will give us recommendations on what they think we could do better. It will give us the overall picture of what we have now, and what we could be more efficient at.”
Mayor Stewart said parking is always an issue in New Britain and since the Streetscape Project, which includes the redesign of Central Park, is being done, this is important.
“While we are revamping downtown, we want to make sure the folks can utilize downtown New Britain,” said Stewart. “We need adequate places to park and it needs to be affordable.”
The study will compare neighborhood towns to be sure prices are adequate.
“I know we are not good at the parking business. This is the whole point of it,” added Stewart. “We need to figure out how we could be more productive and make it easier for our visitors. I think they will tell us some things we know, but will have great recommendations moving forward.”
