Jacksonville again

Jacksonville has been mentioned on these pages before, downtown making parking mistake after parking mistake. Here is an interview with a merchant that appears to need parking in front of her store, and is upset that there isn’t enough and claims its hurting her business. Mark summarizes as follows

Here we go again.  For me I think the entire article can be summed up in this one sentence;

For Cade’s client base – women she describes as “old school classy” – walking a few blocks with a new hairdo that could get rained upon, or freshly done nails that could get ruined by blowing sand or debris, wasn’t the best option.

If your business is dependent on front door parking then making a decision to locate in an URBAN environment may not be best  move.  In the past she benefited from the fact that there were numerous empty lots and empty meters surrounding her business.  It isn’t the fact that parking “went away”, it’s that new infill development “came in” and created more density and synergy in the area (more people and more potential customers).  Also, if the “walking a few blocks” really is THE issue for her there are currently dozens of empty retail spaces located on the ground floor of several downtown garages with rents starting as low as $8/ft. 

     As has been stated very eloquently in the past by Mr Allegretti on this subject;  “We don’t have a parking problem, we have a walking problem.”

Although I usually agree with Mark, I think the onstreet parking issue would be resolved if they simply raised the parking onstreet rates. There would be plenty of available parking, and if the merchant wanted to do so, she could pay for the parking for her customers. They would find a spot right in front of her store and all would be right with the world.

I do agree, however, that we have a walking problem. My story about the reporter who said she couldn’t find a parking space in a tony shopping area. I commented that I knew the area and there were tons of parking lots just off the street. She came back with two issues. First they weren’t convenient (half a block away) and second they cost too much.

I then restated her problem. She couldn’t find a convenient FREE space. Ahhhhhh. Now we understand.

JVH