A downtown parking structure would cost $11-$12 million, planners tell the council.

Of all the adjectives one might choose to describe a parking garage, it’s likely none would connote praise.

In any garage’s concrete bowels, all cars, be they Beamers or Beetles, wedge themselves into standard parking stalls. Light is typically scarce, gray ubiquitous. There’s nothing much to see anyway.

Which is why, when discussing garage aesthetics, cliches about inner beauty don’t apply; it’s what’s on the outside that counts.

“This is not about parking,” said downtown property owner Tom Haggar, addressing elected officials this week on the feasibility of a parking stucture. “This is about achieving a special downtown that isn’t dominated by cars. That’s the exciting part.”

While construction of a parking garage isn’t imminent, the city and Winslow property owners are studying its feasibility to alleviate parking woes downtown.

Though several sites have been considered, and others could be in the future, the most likely scenario would place the garage – which would have between 368 and 736 spaces – just south of the civic plaza where the farmers market is held, according to a progress report by planners to the City Council Wednesday.

The study will continue over the summer, culminating in a final recommendation to the council this fall. It encompasses financing, access, public amenities and the potential size, scope and specific location of the structure.

It does not include specific architectural elements – or possible uses of the top level of the garage, which planners said would likely be at-grade with the current civic plaza and would still serve as a public gathering place.

Still, planners said what’s on top will be important to consider as the project materializes.

If anything, the goal is to increase the amount of public gathering space in the area, rather than lessen it. Because the topography of the site lends itself to doing so, the bulk of the four-story garage would be dug into the hillside.

The top level would extend over what is now the gravel parking south of the market, which means all of that surface area could be developed for any number of public uses.

Problem is, the more parking is excluded from the surface level, the more expensive the garage becomes.

Preliminary estimates – planners stressed they are far from final – put the cost of the structure somewhere between $10.725 million and $11.7 million, depending on its size and the extent to which the city shares expenses with adjacent property owners. That means each individual space would cost $29,150 on the low end to build, $31,800 on the high end. Sharing the cost with business owners would save the city between 8 and 12 percent.

With no surface-level parking, the estimated cost would jump to $13.1 million.

Some of the expense could be covered by the city’s fee-in-lieu program, to which businesses that are unable to provide adequate parking must contribute to fund off-site parking to redevelop their land.

Besides the city, there are two main players (see box, page A3) involved in the study, though all adjacent property owners are being asked to give input.

Access, both in and out of the garage and to the surrounding area, remains an important consideration.

A major goal is to maintain at-grade access from Madison to Ericksen. Access from Winslow Way could come via Madrone Lane or a new street – tentatively dubbed Harbor Way – somewhere east of Winslow Mall.

Although the exact number of spaces and how they would be shared hasn’t been settled, the study team is looking at four possible configurations.

The first is a garage built exclusively by the city that would have the smallest footprint – located roughly where the current parking lot is now – and the fewest number of spaces, 368. According to the report, it would have good opportunities for access and would keep the current civic plaza intact, leaving room for possible future expansion.

The second would be a joint effort between the city and the Winslow Clinic that would extend from where the current lot sits east to Ericksen; it would have 368 spaces on city property and 400 on clinic property.

The third and fourth alternatives, again built only on city property, are similar. In both, the plaza area would have to be redeveloped to make room for the garage beneath. It would hold up to 736 cars.

Urban planner Chuck Depew, who heads the study team, said all options – from remote employee parking to garages at other sites – should still be explored.

“We’re not trying to solve all of the parking issues with this,” he said. “This is just one piece of a full range of strategies.”

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Pondering parking

The city and Winslow property owners are studying the feasibility of constructing a downtown parking garage. Though the final recommendation won’t come until this fall, planners now are exploring four different configurations that would range greatly in size and scope, but would all be located just south of the current civic plaza, where the farmers market is held.

The garage would be least expensive as a joint public/private venture. Specific financing options still are being explored, as is the possibility of acquiring property for an access road to the garage from Winslow Way.

The overall goal of the project is to solve parking problems downtown that were identified during the Winslow Tomorrow process. Several businesses, most prominently the clinic and Town & Country, have expressed concern over unauthorized parking at their properties.

Several property owners are participating in the study, but the main participants are the city, the Haggar-Scribner properties (comprising the WInslow Clinic and surrounding land) and the Sandstrom properties (comprising retail space just south of the current gravel parking lot near the plaza). The latter two have together formed a limited liability company that will continue to work in partnership with the city.

Here are the specific goals of each of the main stakeholders, according to a report presented at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

The city: Increase employee parking for city employees and employees of downtown businesses. Currently there are 102 parking spaces at City Hall. Many employees of downtown businesses purchase Chamber of Commerce parking passes – available for $20 per six months – and park on the street along Bjune (and Brien) Drive. Along with freeing that parking up for shoppers, the city also wants to improve traffic and pedestrian circulation and delivery parking downtown.

The Clinic: With plans for expansion on the horizon, clinic owners anticipate an increase in parking need, both for patients and employees. They hope to phase the project to allow for the development of a new clinic while the existing one remains in operation.

Sandstrom Properties: Owners of the Winslow Mall hope the plan will allow for flexibility, recognizing that redevelopment is not likely to occur for some time. They would like to explore multi-level connections to parking to facilitate multi-level retail.

– Chad Schuster