Downtown Lodi growth spurs local parking concerns

With more new businesses and major projects planned for Downtown Lodi, there are concerns about parking availability in the district.

According to Lodi Transportation Manager Paula Fernandez, there are approximately 1,200 parking spaces in the Downtown area, including the parking structure and the transit station. Public street parking is also available along Sacramento, School, Church, Pine, Oak, Locust and Elm streets and Walnut Avenue.

Expansion plans at the Dancing Fox, located at the south end of School Street in Downtown, will take up 11 of those spaces.

Lodi Senior Planner Craig Hoffman said that many Downtown businesses do not offer on-site parking, but pointed out that the city has a three-deck parking garage on Sacramento Street that continues to be underutilized.

“There is parking within the Downtown but I think the expectation as the Downtown continues to grow is that there would be added density to a lot of these properties,” Hoffman said. “It wasn’t that necessarily parking would be provided on-site, but that it would be provided on the street and other facilities that the city provides.”

According to Fernandez, Downtown parking is only a third full a majority of the time and only reaches capacity during special events.

A study was conducted last year to determine why the Downtown parking structure was not being used to capacity. Out of 104 Lodians surveyed, 93 percent said they felt safe parking in Downtown proper while only 51 percent felt safe using the parking garage. Fifty-six percent concluded that more security measures would encourage them to park in the garage.

According to the results of another study, an average of 69 of 330 spaces (21 percent) were occupied on a weekday and 68 of 330 were filled on a typical Saturday. However, the garage is often packed during special events, such as the Farmers Market, when it was at 93 percent capacity.

“There have been city council meetings or planning commission meetings where there have been questions about safety,” Hoffman said, explaining why some may be a little hesitant to use the garage. “Over the last year the City of Lodi hired an on-site security service. There is 24-hour security that patrols both the transit station and the parking garage.

“A lot of it is wanting to park closer to where you’re shopping at. If you’re just shopping at one store you want to park as close as you can. I think people do use the parking garage, but some people don’t like to walk, and they want to park closer to all the businesses.”

Hoffman said the perception of the parking garage being unsafe is something that the city is trying to change.

“The parking garage is safe, there is security there and it’s a good place to park your car and shop at multiple retail places in the Downtown,” he said.

Downtown Business Alliance President John Della Monica said merchants are doing all that they can to promote usage of the parking garage.

“We’re working with the city on an alternate plan to be able to relieve some of the street parking by creating a few more designated employee-only parking lots,” Della Monica said, suggesting that if more employee-only lots were available it would free up the street parking for customers.

“Every single business that we put into town that requires more employees and more customer base will continue to add to the parking burden, but if a few of these things go into play and if we’re able to jointly promote the parking garage, that could improve the issue.”

Della Monica credited the city for its efforts to make the garage a safe place to park.

“The city has already done a lot to promote the use of it by providing on-site supervision, cleaning it up and adding lighting. They’ve done their part on trying to get the public to use it but it’s a perception issue. Anytime you get someone in an urban setting in an open parking lot most people don’t feel comfortable. So we have to bridge that gap to find a way to get people to get more comfortable.”

Deputy Public Works Director Lyman Chang agreed that there is a misperception about the parking garage being unsafe, noting that in the past the garage wasn’t being patrolled the way it is now and there wasn’t adequate lighting inside the structure.

“If people haven’t been there for a long time they’d be surprised at how well it’s lit,” he said. “It’s pretty safe.”

Fernandez said in addition to lighting upgrades and increased security, there are a total of 15 cameras installed in the parking structure and the city is looking into replacing some of the cameras with more advanced cameras that cover a larger area.

Fernandez acknowledged that there have been some incidents at the garage — in 2016 there were seven car burglaries and a few cases of vandalism — but said the city is making strides to make the garage safer.