CC Minutes - 05/30/01 Work Session

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parking provided by the public sector in downtown, indicating subsidies were likely to be higher in smaller communities than in larger communities. At the conclusion of Mr. Moore's presentation, Mr. Farmer said he anticipated that the new federal courthouse would attract other development into the immediate area and downtown and parking would pay a role in that. More intensive development along 5th Avenue would probably only occur if structured parking was built to replace the existing surface parking. He believed the plans for the East Broadway area would require additional structured parking. In each case, staff was hopeful some of the surface parking that now existed would be eliminated. Mr. Farmer said that Mr. Moore was asked to do his analysis to give staff and the council a sense of whether the private sector would assist in the provision of structured parking in any of those locations, and what the public role was likely to be to realize the council's goal of higher density, mixed-use development in downtown. Mr. Farr determined from Mr. Moore that the land costs for surface parking were specific to the land acquisition alone. Mr. Meisner said the information presented did not indicate why the City was providing all parking in downtown. At the current time, the private sector had no obligation to provide parking downtown as it was exempted from providing parking. He did not see any public/private partnership existing in the provision of parking downtown. Mr. Farmer responded that the private sector had been providing some parking in the form of surface lots. The economics of downtown parking supported that approach. He believed that if the City was to require that developers provide structured parking downtown, the City would not see any downtown development. Mr. Meisner said his concern was about the lack of partnership. Mr. Farmer cited Broadway Place and the parking lots at Pearl Street and East 10th Avenue as examples of public/private partnerships. Mr. Meisner believed the City paid the costs of parking at Broadway Place. Mr. Farmer said he would have to review the construction information before he agreed or disagreed. He concurred with Mr. Meisner that the partnership model was preferable. He thought examples in Portland showed that the private sector could participate. Mr. Meisner thought that if the City was the sole provider of structured parking and it did not have the resources to build it, that "set up the model to fail." Mr. Kelly thanked Mr. Moore for the presentation. He agreed with Mr. Meisner about the need for private/public partnerships. He said the City had held several work sessions on parking and each time there was interest among the councilors about having public/private partnerships and staff acknowledged that, but then the council had to ask again. He had brought up some ideas suggested by the private sector regarding ways to ease the differential in cost, such as the provision of private loans at below-market rates to help the construction of structured parking, or the formation of local improvement districts. He questioned what it would take to get change. Responding to Mr. Kelly's remarks, Mr. Farmer said that downtown development costs more than suburban development, so developers downtown are paying a cost premium to locate downtown. He said there was a public/private partnership in the form of that cost premium. He believed that Broadway Place also included a cost partnership because the land assembly costs were shared by the private/public partners. He said that as the City pursued other downtown development, it would pursue additional public/private partnerships. Each development would be different in how those partnerships played out. He anticipated each model would include cost sharing between MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 30, 2001 Page 2 Work Session