Opinion: City should leave parking garage plan in rearview mirror


This spring, I wrote an op-ed entitled ” Parking garage on the Hill — boon or boondoggle?” I have learned more about this, and it’s become clear that this proposal is a far worse deal than I had envisioned. The following is based on readily available data, but everything is still fluid and so may change.

The notion that a proposed 201-space underground garage is going to solve the Hill’s parking needs is simply not true. A new hotel above the garage will displace 88 existing spaces (62 in the Pleasant Street University Hill General Improvement District lot, plus 26 other spaces) leaving a net gain of 113 new spaces.
But the hotel could use all these up. Here’s how: Assuming only half the hotel patrons drive and a 20 percent vacancy rate on the 189 rooms, that’s 75 cars, leaving 38 net new spaces. The hotel employees (about 38 per shift) and restaurant and shop employees (maybe another 42, depending on what actually gets built on site), even if only half drive, will use up another 40, resulting in a net loss of new spaces. Some existing businesses on the site will simply close their doors rather than move elsewhere on the Hill, adding back a few spaces, making the net gain barely above zero. What’s really scary is this calculation had apparently not been done until I did so last week, and this project is already three years old.
Colorado’s TABOR amendment requires citizen votes on most multi-year debt obligations. To avoid such a vote on the $22.7 million debt to finance this garage, the city of Boulder is proposing to use certificates of participation, even though they have higher interest rates than municipal bonds. COPs are legal devices where the city turns over ownership of some city buildings to a lender, with a lease back to the city, in exchange for the money. If the city doesn’t renew the COPs each year, the lender keeps the buildings. The city says that it can borrow over $20 million using only $5-7 million worth of city buildings. But Loveland, which is currently building a 460-space garage, including 133 spaces underground, had to secure their $15.9 million of COPs with about $17 million of buildings. (By the way, Loveland’s actual structure only cost $13.7 million for 460 spaces, versus the Boulder’s costs $15.5 million for 201 spaces.)
The parking numbers make it look like this garage is being built solely for the hotel; even if some guests or workers don’t park underground, they will still use up valuable street level spaces that might benefit Hill merchants. But the hotel won’t pay one dime more than they would have if the garage were never built. The revenues to pay off the COPs will come from regular city taxes that the hotel development would pay anyway. And it’s not just the incremental increase due to the new development; it’s all, other than dedicated taxes such as for open space. So they will not be paying for tax-funded city services they receive, such as police and fire. And this includes general improvement district taxes, so service levels on the Hill will suffer. But even all that money, plus the pittance left over from parking fees after operations and maintenance, is not enough. So the city’s general fund will cover the shortfall over some decades, and be “paid back” eventually with the same taxes with no interest, costing Boulder citizens even more. Some deal.
One argument for building the hotel is that the guests will shop and eat on the Hill, thereby “revitalizing” it. (If I never hear the words “revitalize” or “vitality” from the city again, it will be too soon.) But if the Hill neighborhood residents dislike the Hill’s current condition so much that they won’t go there, why does anyone think that hotel guests paying $240 per night will? To survive, the hotel will be forced to run its own restaurant for their guests and their University of Colorado offspring. As to shopping, I suspect that the number of hotel guests that will get their ears pierced, have their computers fixed, or buy a pot pipe are few and far between.
Unfortunately, the city still has not done any in-depth economic analyses, so it’s impossible to make evidence-based decisions on what ideas might actually work. And it’s the perfect place for the city to do sub-area planning and to examine the full range of possibilities. But don’t just turn it over to city staff and expect it will all get solved.
Remember Einstein’s observation — insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.


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