Weekly Poll: Should There be Additional Parking at Phase I of the Promenade?
Phase I of the Promenade is one of the most highly anticipated projects within the City of Dublin. Once completed, it will boast a 47,669 sq. ft. Club Sport Athletic Club & Spa, a 52,716 sq. ft. Mercantile Building with shops, restaurants, and office spaces, and an attractive four-level parking structure.
One of the key questions related to Phase I of the Promenade is whether or not there will be sufficient parking spaces. The answer depends on which counting method the City eventually adopts for this project. By simple counting, the current proposal will provide 41 parking spaces below the City of Dublin’s Zoning Ordinance. By a more progressive “shared parking” calculation, the proposal as is will provide 47 more parking spaces above the Zoning Ordinance requirement.
Planning Commissioner Doreen Wehrenberg is concerned the “shared parking” calculation may not serve the city’s best interest. Predicting how long customers will stay at the Promenade is difficult. Given the known parking challenges at Dublin Ranch Villages, many nearby residents may want to use some of the parking spaces in the Promenade garage during business hours. The likelihood of parking conflict between the Promenade customers and nearby residents during the hours of operation may, therefore, render the assumptions underpinning the “shared parking” calculation invalid. Commissioner Wehrenberg suggested that a potential solution would be to add a level of underground parking so that the project can meet the City of Dublin’s Zoning Ordinance requirement without increasing the height of the proposed parking structure.
Planning Commissioner and Chair Bill Schaub, on the other hand, believes that the Promenade tenants and the Dublin Ranch Villages residents can “take care of” any potential parking issues on their own. This laissez faire attitude is consistent with Commissioner Schaub’s 2007 quote on the parking crisis in the Dublin Ranch Villages. In that article, Schaub proclaimed that “parking requirements are more than adequate and developers have complained about the number of parking spots they have to provide. Congestion is a sign of a successful area.“
This week’s poll question is – Should There be Additional Parking at Phase I of the Promenade?
Please feel free to email the Planning Department Manager with feedback at planning.mgr@ci
12:50 PM on November 16th, 2008
They need follow the city’s zoning ordinance. Plain and simple.
2:16 PM on November 16th, 2008
For those who would like to read the complete Contra Costa Times article from 2007 online for yourself, you will need to have a valid email address and go through a few registration screens. We assure you the article is a keeper and definitely worth the trouble. Thank you.
2:32 PM on November 16th, 2008
Did the developer make any proclamation about how the Promenade is Dublin’s answer to Santana Row? Santana Row has multiple parking structures and expansive underground parking. Charter needs to do the right thing and prove to us that they can do underground parking. If they make a stink about it now, why should we believe they will build sufficient underground parking at Grafton Plaza? Charter needs to go above and beyond the bare minimum requirement — ABOVE AND BEYOND!
5:49 PM on November 16th, 2008
Thanks, Jimmy. In that article, it sounds like our Mayor-elect Tim Sbranti also parks his car on the street and contributing to the parking crisis in his own neighborhood. I hope he will do the right thing and not tell his constituents to look at the “big picture” as he always likes to do when he argues against Dublin’s best interest. The “big picture” is we have a parking crisis in Dublin Ranch Villages, and it’s time for him and the others to repent and push the developers to do what’s right for everyone.
9:09 PM on November 16th, 2008
Hi Anonymous 11/16/08 1:32 PM – I personally think of The Promenade as Dublin’s answer to Santana Row because of the proposed layout, look/feel, upscale shops, affluent target market, and mix of retail, restaurant, and office space. However, I don’t think that I’ve heard the developer liken The Promenade to Santana Row.
I think that many developers believe that their projects are distinctive and different from what has been done before and don’t necessarily like to compare their work to another project.
12:06 AM on November 17th, 2008
I am confused. In the earlier post, you mentioned that the developer will install a gate to the parking garage that would let people out and not let them in at night. It didn’t sound like the developer is interested in the shared parking idea at all, so why are we talking about it? I think underground parking is the way to go as well. It’s an upfront investment that everyone will benefit from.
1:31 AM on November 17th, 2008
I can’t tell you how happy I am to read about this. As one of the first settlers in the Dublin Ranch Villages, I never thought I’d stay long enough to see they’re actually doing something at the Promenade. Dublin is finally moving in the right direction.
As much as I’d like construction to start yesterday, I also realize that this project is too big and too important for us to rush through. I agree with the majority so far that more parking should be provided by adding underground levels, and I am actually surprised that the Lin family is being so difficult on something as basic as parking. If the whole Grafton Plaza plus Promenade combination is supposed to be this huge draw for the Greater Bay Area, wouldn’t they want to plan for that future and make sure there is plenty of parking for everyone?
John and Jimmy, I think it is important for you to be very clear about why “many nearby residents may want to use” the Promenade parking. What will end up happening is that customers and employees will take up the street parking first, because street parking is convenient and is for everyone to use. Only after the street parking is filled will people start looking to the parking garage as the next best thing. It’s a shame that the majority of the Planning Commission does not share Cmr. Wehrenberg’s valid concern over the assumptions required for the “shared parking” calculation to work as intended.
5:49 AM on November 17th, 2008
Hi Anonymous – for this project,
“shared parking” refers to the sharing of parking between customers/employees at Club Sport and the Mercantile Building. The developer’s assumptions exclude the usage of street and garage parking by residents living at the Dublin Ranch Villages.
12:07 AM on November 19th, 2008
The lack of parking in a residential area such as the Villages is not prosperity nor a sign of success. It is the absolute anti quality of life when one spends nearly a half million dollars on a home but cannot park anywhere near it nor can they have guests as there are no parking for them.
Schaub Schaub Schaub you are embarassing us as representative of our beloved town by making P. Hilton like comments or rationale.
Poor planning on top of poor planning is the right answer.
4:51 PM on December 3rd, 2008
Very interesting if you check out today’s Contra Costa Times, there was an article about the Neiman Marcus project slated for Broadway Plaza.
The project was approved by the City Council and Planning Commission against popular sentiments of residents. They were able to do a petitiion drive to gather 4000 verified signatures that would have qualified them to place the project up for a special election. This prompted the developer/landowner to scrap their current unpopular plan and offered to redo it to appease resident concerns.
For a city of about $60K “WC” they needed 4000 signatures, Dublin at 43K would need less signatures. Don’t know the actual formula though as to what is required to qualify a petition.
Maybe if we have enough passion here something similiar could be done to turn back Wallis Ranch (medium and high density), The Promenade (inadequate parking), Schaefer Ranch (12 estates to 140 cluster SFR), Sorrento East (High Density Apartments), The Grove (2nd Phase of more High Density), High Density Housing in General away from Downtown and BART.
I believe this could be disruptive and may cause some developers to shy away in the future if we become too political like say “Berkeley”. But at the same time any future developer coming to town knows that they won’t have a cakewalk regardless if City Hall rolls out the red carpet for them or not. Residents will be a second set of eyes to offset City Hall who sometimes loose focus of who they represent.
Walnut Creek though does have the luxury of having Neiman Marcus walk away and not hurt a bit as compared to Dublin where we can’t afford the Promenade to walk away.
Just a thought!!
4:10 PM on December 10th, 2008
First of all, if the residents in the East Dublin high density residential areas parked in their garages instead of using them for storage units, there would be no parking problem. Second, the added cost of adding underground parking to these developments ($35K-45K per underground stall) simply because the residential HOA’s won’t police their own parking policies, would render these projects uneconomical and the East Dublin residents would loose the great amenities that are being proposed.
I struggle to understand why it is a developers obligation to fix the problems of surrounding developments.
As for Shared Parking, this is a great concept. It gets us away from massive sea’s of blacktop parking lots and saves more land for development of things that we all can enjoy.
4:46 PM on December 10th, 2008
Why don’t we all tell our new mayor that he needs to park his car in his garage in the Villas and get all the HOAs in the area to enforce the parking policies, so only non-residents park on the streets? What should be the penalties levied against the HOAs, if the HOAs refuse to comply? How would that affect the property values in that area? Also, why do people automatically assume that more parking lots mean more black asphalt? If Charter Properties wants to create an upscale ambiance, they can easily do interlocking concrete pavement. Charter will more than recuperate their cost in the high rent they will charge to tenants, so let’s not worry about how much underground parking will cost them. What we need to worry about really is the cost to Dublin if we do NOT insist on underground parking. If the developer of the Terraces can do two underground parking garages, Charter should be able to do the same.
5:05 PM on December 10th, 2008
Anonymous on December 10, 2008 3:10 PM clearly does not live in the Dublin Ranch Villages. Charter has invested too much in this area for them to simply walk away. Let’s not lose sight of that. If we don’t push back on the developers and insist on quality, why even bother having a City Council or a Planning Commission? Wouldn’t the City be run more efficiently, if the developers were running the show? Maybe they already do.
12:51 AM on December 11th, 2008
Developers already do run the City, look at the track record of City Hall and Planning Commission the past 8 years, siding with developers time and time again. Whatever they say should fly, will fly in Dublin.
No one is saying to force Charter to build more parking than the minimum called for by City Ordinance, we are just saying build your fair share, not 41 less as being proposed. A little less hear, a little less there and we will have a nightmare years from now and dropping home values for Dublin Village Residents. Once news is out in the open about the parking problems there wouldn’t you think people will shy away from plucking down $400 – $700K for a condo or townhouse there?
1:51 AM on April 28th, 2009
Dublin Ranch Villages will never be close to Santana Row, a combination of poor planning and greed. The end product is devaluation of home values for all of Dublin.