Imagining Alternate Uses for Surface Parking

By Eric Richardson
Published: Friday, March 03, 2006, at 12:13AM

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The other day Curbed LA linked to a really interesting proposal to turn surface parking lots to alternate uses in off-peak times. The proposal, developed as a graduate thesis by USC landscape architecture student Veenu Jayaram, would use the lots for parking during the work-week and turn them into parks and recreational courts during the off-peak.

I don't know what the number is these days with lots starting to disappear to development, but I remember hearing that something like 60% of Downtown's real estate was devoted to parking. As land becomes more valuable the percentage devoted to surface parking is certain to lessen, but it would be interesting to see more on what kind of funds it would take to convert traditional surface parking into these more fanciful and livable concepts.

Comments

Nic Cha Kim writes:

I had a meeting at the Hive last night, but there was no metered parking available anywhere. It was all taken up by production companies. I parked on 2nd and walked down to 8th. Not a big deal, but this is a problem if the galleries can't get people even close to their store. On more than a few occasions, I've received calls from friends that drove all the way to one of my openings, only to go home due to lack of available parking. Even the paid parking gets taken up by production companies.

Is there a rule in place that forces the city to allow at least a minimum of spaces or do they just lease the city out to whoever asks for it?

# on Mar.03.2006 AT 01:01 PM

Eric Richardson writes:

No offense Nic, but you may just not be good at looking for meter spots. Whenever Kathy comes over she parks on 7th Street and the farthest in she nearly ever has to go is the block between Broadway and Hill. That's a lot closer than 2nd. :)

Production vehicles, unless they have a side of the street blocked for the shoot, should never be in street spots. They've been filming at the Palace for months now, taking up the lots on both sides of my building, but the (very few) meter and loading zone spots on Spring have been unaffected.

# on Mar.03.2006 AT 01:19 PM

Ryan Sebastian writes:

The 60% figure you cited includes land devoted to streets, alleys, etc. Basically, anything that you can drive a car on.

Ironically, Downtown LA probably devotes more space to the car than many auto-dominated suburbs with organic street patterns (which allow for more street frontage with less roadway).

# on Mar.03.2006 AT 05:14 PM

Nic Cha Kim writes:

Eric is right in that I have terrible parking karma. Touche!

# on Mar.06.2006 AT 10:07 AM