Fears of downtown parking pinch in wake of plan to build on 11 lots

PORTLAND, Ore. — Parking in downtown Portland is tough enough, but with a developer now planning to build 11 high-rise buildings on parking lots, some drivers fear parking will become a disaster.

Dylan Rivera, spokesman for Portland's Bureau of Transportation (PBoT), told KATU his agency ran inventories last year and six years ago on street parking that "found that parking was really over capacity in a lot of different parts of downtown; Central Business District, Old Town and other parts of downtown."

An internal PBoT memo sent last June said, "SmartPark garages in the retail core are operating at or above the 85% occupancy target."

The city recently raised the price of street parking to $2 an hour in part to discourage people from driving and officials say they want to reduce the number of surface parking lots.

Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on Thursday released a draft of a central city plan for 2035 that says the city will "continue to limit the growth of the overall parking supply" and "encourage new development on surface parking lots and vacant lots."

"Limiting the growth of parking doesn't mean no growth in parking," Rivera said.

He explained that developers that build over parking lots are allowed to replace the lost parking spaces but admitted, "There's no requirement for more parking to be built."

Greg Goodman, co-president of Downtown Development Group, the company behind the plan to build 11 high-rise buildings, told KATU on Monday they plan to work with the city to provide public parking in the developments, but didn't say how much.

New developments can add parking with a limitation as small as one space per thousand square feet of commercial space, Rivera said. In some places it's 1.5 spaces per thousand square feet and in the Lloyd District, Rivera said, it's higher.

Private parking lots can charge whatever they want.

Rivera also said the city has no plans to build more of the city's SmartPark garages.

"That can cost $30,000 to $50,000 a parking space just to build a parking space," he said. "We think it's smarter for us to invest in public transit and biking and walking and things that can help us reduce air pollution and also reduce congestion."

"There's already no place to park and now they wanna take more away? It's just really ridiculous," Joshua J. Kemp, of Beaverton, told KATU. "It'll just mean less incentive for me to come downtown."

Byron Spann, a driver visiting downtown Portland from Los Angeles, said Thursday the $11 he paid for all-day parking was not bad compared to what he pays in downtown L.A.

"By the Staples Center where the Lakers play it's about $20 to $30," Spann said.

Eden Dabbs, spokeswoman for Portland's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, said Monday that the Downtown Development Group plan still has to make its way through multiple public hearings and City Council votes before becoming a reality.

"It could be years before the design, permits and financing for each of these buildings to come together," said Dabbs.