Public market, mall would pinch public parking in Richland

Building a public market at Richland’s George Washington Way entrance is a dream for many.

But for neighboring businesses, plans for a strip mall or a market-office-apartment complex are bringing long-simmering fears of parking shortages to the front burner.

Parking, already at a premium at The Parkway business district and at Howard Amon Park, will worsen under the stress of new shoppers, workers and residents, said current business owners and employees.

The city counts 1,500 publicly available parking spots within about a mile walking distance of the proposed site. Two-thirds of those are at the Federal Building on the other side of John Dam Plaza.

The closer spots fill quickly during special events, business owners say. Would-be customers are crowded out by people headed to Howard Amon Park, John Dam Plaza and local restaurants, which regularly hold special events.

Allied Arts’ annual Art in the Park is so popular that organizers arrange for shuttles to ferry visitors from remote parking areas as far away as Richland High School.

The current market proposal includes a 240-space underground parking garage. But the questions remain: Is that enough and what would it look like?

And developing above-ground parking lots could create more problems than it solves, said Kerwin Jensen, Richland’s community and economic development director.

Build enough spots to meet peak demand and most go empty the rest of the time. That conflicts with the city’s dream of a lively downtown.

“There’s nothing to make a downtown look dead like a bunch of empty parking lots,” he said.

Walkable cities have to be thoughtful about where and when they expand parking, said Robert Ping, executive director of the Portland-based Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, which works with cities to encourage walking and biking.

Driving-related infrastructure is costly. Parking is seldom the best use of land, especially in downtown districts. That’s doubly true in places like the Tri-Cities, where parking is invariably free, he said.

Cities need to resist the pressure to overbuild to accommodate a few special events or holidays, he said.

“Parking is the most difficult conversation to have in any U.S. community,” he said. “We’ve created free parking as an entitlement.”

The possible market’s would-be neighbors are mostly enthusiastic about the addition of a year-round public market. But they admit a sense of dread over parking.

Joy Slone, owner of Ariel Gourmet & Gifts at The Parkway, said current parking at The Parkway can be “hairy,” especially during the lunch hour and holiday shopping seasons. But crowds drive business and she does well with walk-in traffic. A market would likely spur that on.

Her highest grossing days are the Fridays when the Richland Farmers Market at The Parkway is in full swing. She’s content to park at a nearby lot to free up on-street spots near her store.

“I don’t mind walking a little way,” she said. But she acknowledged Tri-Citians expect parking to be easy, free and close to the front door.

But Luke Ray, a licensed tattoo artist who leases a station at Parkway Tattoo & Piercing, intends to move to another parlor because he said parking limits at The Parkway aren’t enforced. “(The city) will not do anything about it,” he said.

Diane Crawford, an administrative assistant at AmeriTax & Accounting at The Parkway is an unabashed market supporter.

A year-round public market is exactly what Richland needs to rehabilitate the unsightly pit, she said. Parking will solve itself, she believes.

“People who want to come here will find a place to park and they’ll walk,” she said.

Under a strict interpretation of Richland’s minimum parking requirements, the proposed Tri-Cities Public Market would need 322 spots.

That’s 100 for the 30,000-square-foot market, 72 for the 25,000-square-foot office and 150 for the 100 apartment units. But Jensen said the complexity of the project will affect the final number required.

Adam Brault, who is partnering with Crown Group to push the market vision at 650 George Washington Way, acknowledged recently to the city council that parking is a potential issue.

He suggested the city could net 100 more parking spots by converting a stretch of Jadwin Avenue that peters out between the market site and a nearby gas station into street parking, bringing the project’s total to 340.

Brault and Crown have an agreement with the city to develop the property currently called “the pit” to build a strip mall, but have more recently wanted the city to consider allowing them to build the public market-anchored project.

The city council has yet to decide if it wants to commit its support to the market project, saying it needs to complete its downtown vision plan first.

Market or no market, parking is inadequate, said Allison Hayes, manager of Ariel Gourmet & Gifts.

“They need a parking garage,” she said.

Across George Washington Way, Penelope Sinclair runs a one-woman massage and reflexology business in the Nutrex building.

The building is sandwiched between the Howard Amon entrance to the north and the L-shaped pit property to the south. It is surrounded by a sea of unpaved parking.

The lot is empty most days, but it overflows during special events. Sinclair cordons off Nutrex spots with cones and police tape, but to no avail. Visitors regularly toss them aside and use the spots anyway.

“I don’t think anybody in the building even works Friday or Saturday during Art in the Park,” she said. “I don’t know what the answer is. All I can think of is multilevel parking.”

Sinclair said she’ll probably move her business if the market is built, but she still loves the idea and will shop there.

The pit is a continuing problem, but so is parking, according to another Nutrex tenant.

“It’s an eyesore,” said Ryan Washburn, program administrator for the nonprofit Elijah Family Home. As a caseworker, he’s frequently in and out during the day. The odds of finding a parking spot diminish as the day wears on. He fears a public market or strip mall would exacerbate the problem.

“It would be a nuisance coming to work every day,” he said.

Richland shopper Michelle Smith, visiting her travel agent at The Parkway, said having an excavated pit polluting the city’s entrance has gone on too long.

“The pit needs to be cleaned up. I feel like we’re in an episode of Parks and Recreation every year,” she said.

“They just have to make sure there’s enough parking.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 10:10 PM with the headline "Public market, mall would pinch public parking in Richland."