Parking Study
April 18, 2003
Mr. James S. Bancroft
Chair, Board of Directors
St. Joseph Center
204 Hampton Drive
Venice, California 90291-8633
RE: Existing and Future Parking Demand Analysis ‚ St. Joseph Center Expansion
Dear Mr. Bancroft,
We have completed our assessment of the existing and forecast future parking conditions at the St. Joseph Center facilities on Hampton Drive in Venice. As you know, this analysis was undertaken in order to establish actual parking utilizations for the St. Joseph Center and the other unrelated user on the project site (St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities) as a baseline from which to estimate the future parking needs of the St. Joseph Center following the proposed expansion of the facilities. These parking utilization evaluations are intended to provide empirical parking data to supplement the parking requirements determined by the City of Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety through application of the City of Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC). The LAMC requirements are based on general land use descriptions, and do not recognize the unique operations of the St. Joseph Center, including nominal site staffing and low vehicular usage by Center clientele. Most of the patrons served by the Center are low income and do not drive to or from the facilities. These factors greatly decrease the need for parking spaces related to the Center.
The results of the study are discussed in detail later in this report, but to summarize, a week long parking utilization survey conducted at the site indicated that there are currently a total of approximately 134 on site parking spaces. These spaces are shared by employees and visitors of the three primary uses occupying the site (St. Clement Church, St. Joseph Center, and Catholic Charities). However, because of the nature of their operations, these existing uses do not fully utilize the on site parking facilities, and approximately 58 spaces located in the northwestern portion of the site are currently leased on a month to month basis for public parking. The peak weekday parking utilization for the site, including these leased public spaces, occurred between approximately 11:00 AM and 12:00 noon on Monday. At this time, a total of 114 of the 134 spaces were occupied. The St. Joseph Center utilized approximately 38 spaces, the St. Clement Church occupied nine spaces, and the Catholic Charities used six spaces, for a total of 53 spaces. During this same time, the leased parking was observed to be occupied by 61 parked vehicles.
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April 18, 2003
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The proposed project is anticipated to more than double the existing floor space available to the St. Joseph Center. However, this increase is planned primarily to provide additional areas for the existing operations and programs, which are currently housed in undersized and aging facilities. Although some increase in the number of patrons and employees is anticipated, resulting in periodic increases in parking demand for the Center, the amount of parking proposed for the new facility will be adequate to meet the maximum forecast future parking needs for the site. The proposed project will not change the size, operations, or future parking needs of the St. Clement Church or Catholic Charities uses.
The proposed project will also slightly reconfigure the existing parking facilities on the site. The existing internal connection between the ìupperî and ìlowerî parking areas will be removed, as will the Hampton Drive driveway to the ìlowerî parking areas. The ìupperî lot parking layout will remain essentially unchanged, although the elimination of the internal circulation and a more efficient layout will allow for an approximately eight-space increase in capacity to a total of approximately 62 spaces. The ìlowerî parking areas will be consolidated into a single surface parking lot at the northwest corner of the site providing approximately 72 spaces. Thus, the site will continue to provide a total of 134 spaces, as is the current condition.
The results of our analyses indicate that following the completion and occupancy of the proposed St. Joseph Center facility, parking demands for the site could increase. However, the forecast maximum parking demand for the expanded St. Joseph Center, plus the St. Clement Church, and Catholic Charities facilities, is conservatively estimated to be a total of approximately 78 spaces. Actual future parking demands are expected to be less, since the ìworst case analysisî methodology used to establish future parking needs of the St. Joseph Center expansion assumed much higher vehicle utilizations by the Center clientele than were actually observed.
As noted earlier, the future site will continue to provide a total of 134 parking spaces, and as a result, a minimum total of approximately 56 spaces would be available at all times during the week. This excess parking would be generally sufficient to accommodate the observed demand for the existing leased parking spaces, with the exception of a few hours during Monday mid-day (approximately 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM), when a maximum shortfall of three spaces could occur. It is important to note that the forecast future parking demands identified in this study for the proposed St. Joseph Center project are highly conservative, and are based on a high degree of clientele vehicular utilization not observed during our parking counts. It is unlikely that the peak number of spaces estimated will be utilized. However, should these peak forecast parking demands occur, a maximum of up to three vehicles currently utilizing the leased parking spaces could be displaced. A preliminary survey of the project vicinity indicated that there is adequate available off street public parking within a two block radius of the site to accommodate these potentially displaced vehicles, and significant effects on the surrounding residential parking availability are not anticipated.
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April 18, 2003
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Therefore, the results of the parking demand analyses on the effects of the proposed St. Joseph Center expansion project indicate that the number of spaces proposed for the future parking facilities will not change from the number currently provided, and that the 134 spaces will be sufficient to accommodate the forecast maximum parking demands for the three primary uses on the site, plus allow for the continuation of the operations of the leased public parking area without resulting in significant ìoverflowî or displaced parking to area on street commercial and residential parking availability. The data collected during our surveys supports the conclusion that no significant parking impacts are anticipated as a result of the proposed project, or its nominal increases in future parking demand.
Background
The St. Joseph Center, established in 1976, is a non-profit organization that provides assistance and social services to low-income and homeless men, women, and families at no charge. Its eleven programs are divided into three areas of service: 1) help for working poor families; 2) help for homeless men, women, and children; and 3) assistance with money management for disabled veterans and other individuals. The Centerís services are delivered at seven locations.
At the subject site, located at 204 Hampton Drive in Venice, California, the Center provides a variety of family oriented services, including a food pantry to distribute groceries to poor families, child care and parenting programs, after school and mentoring activities for youths aged 6 to 17, and classes and educational workshops. The Centerís administrative offices are also located at the Hampton Drive site. The Center operates generally between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM Monday through Friday, although some after school programs and adult education classes are held during the evenings of various days of the week. These programs and classes generally end no later than 6:30 PM. St. Joseph Center does not operate on weekends.
Over the years, as the number of programs and persons assisted has increased, the Hampton Drive facilities have become severely undersized. As a result, the range of programs and services available has been affected. The proposed project will expand the size of the existing facilities, primarily to better serve the existing programs, although in order to provide more efficient case management and operations of the Center, some slight increase in the number of staff may occur. Additionally, new classroom and child care facilities space will be available, and some of the programs (including the daycare center) will be expanded somewhat. However, no significant increase in the number of participants in most of the Centerís programs is anticipated.
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Existing Site Conditions
St. Joseph Centerís proposed project is located at the 204 Hampton Drive location, on a site that occupies the northern portion of the block bounded by Marine Street on the north, Third Street on the south, Hampton Street on the west, and Rose Avenue on the south. The existing site and vicinity are shown in Figure 1. The St. Joseph Center facility itself is located in the southwest quadrant of the site, which it shares with two other uses; St. Clement Church, and Catholic Charities. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles owns the entire site, which is administered by St. Clement Church. St. Joseph Center leases its facilities from the Archdiocese. The City of Los Angeles/City of Santa Monica boundary bisects the site, with the northern portion of the site, including the St. Clement Church and rectory, located in the City of Santa Monica, while the St. Joseph Center and Catholic Charities facilities are located in the City of Los Angeles.
The existing St. Joseph Center facilities are comprised of a total of approximately 10,674 square feet of administrative and case management offices, classrooms, child care facilities, and ancillary uses. The existing parking areas on the site contain a total of approximately 134 spaces. The site currently exhibits a significant grade differential from east to west, with the St. Clement Church, rectory, and approximately 54 parking spaces located in the easterly ìupperî portion of the site, while the existing St. Joseph Center facilities and the remaining 80 spaces are located in the ìlowerî portion. Internal circulation is currently allowed between the site parking areas, and employees of and visitors to any of the on site facilities generally intermingle within these parking areas.
Because the number of vehicles associated with the operations of St. Joseph Center, Catholic Charities, and St. Clement Church are typically low, approximately 58 parking spaces located in the northwest corner of the site are currently unused by the on site development, and are leased by St. Clement Church to a parking provider, who in turn, leases some of the spaces to area businesses for employee and visitor parking. Users of these leased spaces are permitted only to park in the northwest corner lot, so as not to interfere with the day to day operations of the remainder of the siteís facilities. A schematic layout of the existing site uses and parking areas is shown in Figure 2.
The number of employees and program participants using the St. Joseph Center facilities varies throughout the day, and is based on the number of programs and cases on going at any particular time. In general, the Center has about 42 staff on site at any time. The daycare center currently serves approximately 19 children, who are dropped off at the site between 8:00 and 9:30 AM. Additionally, throughout the day, as the various programs and classes are offered, participants arrive and depart the site. A summary of the current activities and employee/participant levels is contained in Attachment A of this document.
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Most of the program and classroom participants use public transportation or walk to the site, and thus do not utilize the siteís parking areas. This factor greatly influences the amount of parking needed to accommodate the St. Joseph Center operations, and results in an inordinately high parking requirement based on the existing LAMC parking code applications. As a result, a detailed parking utilization analysis was undertaken to identify the actual parking needs of the existing site, including the St. Joseph Center as well as the St. Clement Church and rectory, the Catholic Charities operations, and the public parking lot. The methodology, results, and conclusions of the parking analyses are described in the following sections of this report.
To assess the current parking conditions and to provide a baseline for estimation of potential future parking needs for the site, a series of on site parking ìsweepsî and surveys were conducted. These surveys documented the total parking utilization on each day of a typical week (Monday through Friday). Limited Saturday and Sunday parking sweeps were also performed, although as noted previously, St. Joseph Center does not operate on weekends. However, since the on site parking spaces are also used by the St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities facilities on weekends, and the proposed project would reconfigure the parking for the entire site, weekend counts were conducted to ensure that adequate site parking would be available in the future for the other site occupants.
The parking observations were conducted during the week between Monday February 10th and Sunday February 16th, 2003, although due to inclement weather conditions, counts for the Thursday activities were conducted during the following week, on February 20th. The data collection included a physical count the number and locations of cars actually parked in the on site facilities during key times of the weekdays between 7:30 AM and 7:00 PM, including every half-hour between 7:30 and 11:00 AM, which encompasses the highest parking activities for the St. Joseph Center. This time period includes the arrival of the facility staff, child care drop off activities, food pantry operations, and the beginning of individual case management activities. Weekend counts were conducted at fewer times, to reflect the peak occupancy levels of the site based on St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities schedules.
The parking surveys also involved the identification of the destination of the vehicleís users during each of the sweeps. Through the cooperation of all of the siteís occupants, identification placards were placed in each of the employee vehicles during the survey periods so that the amount of parking utilized by employees of each of the on site facilities could be documented. Additionally, staff from the St. Joseph Center assisted the Crain & Associates parking count personnel in identifying vehicles belonging to participants, volunteers, and visitors of each of the facilities during each of the parking sweep periods. Thus, a detailed parking profile was developed for each of the on site facilities during each of the survey days, so that both the existing and future parking implications of the project could be identified.
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Off site parking utilization potential by the site occupants was also surveyed. However, the results of those sweeps indicated that only nominal and sporadic street parking by St. Joseph Center, St. Clement Church, or Catholic Charities related traffic occurs. All of the employees and program participants who drive park in the on site parking lots, and only infrequent and insignificant numbers of visitors to any of the siteís facilities park on the street. This is due primarily to a lack of available on street parking in the project area, due to high residential parking usage resulting from the homes and apartments in the vicinity. As a result, the parking analyses and conclusions of this report are focused on the data obtained from the sweeps and surveys conducted for the on site parking lots.
Existing Weekday Parking Demand
The parking sweep data is summarized in the tables contained in Attachment B. The results of the parking sweeps at the site indicated that the peak parking activity occurred on a Monday, between approximately 11:00 AM and 12:00 Noon. During this time, a total of 114 of the available 134 parking spaces were occupied. St. Joseph Center utilized a total of approximately 38 of these spaces (27 employees, nine program participants/visitors, plus two St. Joseph Center service vehicles). The St. Clement Church utilized nine spaces, and the Catholic Charities facility occupied six additional spaces. During this peak period of parking utilization, the leased parking spaces were occupied in excess of capacity, with a total of 61 vehicles observed.
Thus, the St. Joseph/St. Clement/Catholic Charities facilities utilized a maximum total of 53 of the total of 134 spaces during the week. (Note: a total of 53 spaces were also utilized between approximately 10:30 AM and 12:00 Noon on Tuesday.) At no time during the survey period did the parking for these uses overflow onto the adjacent streets. The maximum individual utilizations observed during the week showed a peak of 42 spaces utilized by the St. Joseph Center (Tuesday between 10:30 and 11:30 AM, and again on Wednesday between 3:00 and 5:00 PM), a peak use of 11 spaces for the St. Clement Church (Monday between 10:30 and 11:30 AM), and a maximum of six spaces for the Catholic Charities (Monday between 11:00 AM and 12:00 Noon). Even if these individual peaks were combined (they do not occur simultaneously), the total parking use for these facilities would be 59 spaces, or approximately 44 percent of the total 134 parking spaces available on the site. This minimal employee and visitor utilization of the on site parking facilities has allowed the archdiocese to make available approximately 58 spaces on the site for lease to off site users.
These leased parking spaces were essentially full much of the surveyed week, although parking use diminished somewhat during the later parts of the week. The maximum use occurred between 11:00 AM and 12:00 Noon on Monday, at 61 spaces as noted above, although use on this day was above 90 percent (54 vehicles) between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Parking use was also high on Tuesday, with a maximum of 58 spaces used, and again on Thursday, with 56
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Figure 3
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spaces occupied during the peak period. On Wednesday, the maximum utilization was 43 spaces, while on Friday, the peak occupancy was only 32 spaces.
Proposed Project
As noted previously, the proposed project will expand the St. Joseph Center facilities, essentially to provide better facilities and more space to accommodate existing staffing and programs. The existing 10,674 square foot facility will be demolished, and a new two story structure containing a total of approximately 29,086 square feet will be constructed. The conceptual layout for the new facility and the remainder of the site is shown in Figure 3.
The new building will provide a substantial improvement in the facilities available. The first floor of the new building will provide space for the operations of the Centerís assistance and education programs, including approximately three general use classrooms, a multi-purpose room, two child care classrooms, a culinary classroom, kitchen, food pantry areas, and storage and other ancillary areas. The second floor of the facility will house the administrative offices and case management areas, including about 10 offices and conference rooms for administrative staffs, a total of about 20 case management offices, a computer lab, various work stations, plus a break room/kitchen area and waiting room/reception areas and storage facilities.
In addition to the new St. Joseph Center building, the on site parking facilities will be modified, although a total of 134 parking spaces will continue to be provided for the shared utilization of all of the existing uses on the site. The primary changes will result in the removal of the existing internal circulation ramp, which will physically separate the on site parking into two separate lots, the elimination of an approximately 25-space existing parking area adjacent to the existing St. Joseph Center building (on the east), and a reconfiguration of the surface parking area at the northwest corner of the project site. Following completion of the proposed project, the new ìupper lotî will provide a total of approximately 62 spaces. The existing access to this lot, provided via a single driveway from Third Street and two driveways from Marine Street, will remain unchanged. The new ìlower lotî will provide a total of 72 spaces, and access to this lot will be modified. The existing driveway on Marine Street will remain as the only entrance, with the existing Hampton Drive driveway closed to provide more efficient internal circulation.
The current staffing and program service levels are not anticipated to change substantially, although some increases in a variety of programs are proposed. The most substantial change involves the expansion of the child care operations from approximately 19 children to a maximum of about 38 children, and a resultant employee increase of one person. This expansion of the child care operations would result in only nominal and transient parking related increases during the child drop off (8:00 to 9:30 AM) and pick up (3:30 to 5:00 PM) activities.
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Other programs are also anticipated to expand slightly, although most would not significantly affect the amount of traffic or parking associated with the site. The Senior Outreach program could add up to five new clients per day. Parent support group and parent/infant group classes may expand to provide one additional class per week each of about 10 persons. These classes are held only on Wednesday and Thursday during the late morning and early afternoon. The Centerís computer classes, held only on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, could expand to offer approximately 11 additional seats per class. A small business development class, held on Monday evening and Friday afternoon, might add up to five additional students per class. Finally, the Center currently provides an existing Culinary Training Program at one of its satellite facilities. This program, which involves approximately 16 clients and two staff from approximately 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM on weekdays, will be moved to the expanded Center once it is completed. However, other programs such as the food pantry, after school programs, and case management operations are not anticipated to expand. A summary of the anticipated changes in the operations, staffing, and programs for the St. Joseph Center is shown in Attachment C.
Future Parking Demand Forecast Methodology and Assumptions
In order to quantify the potential effects of the expansion project on the future parking needs for the St. Joseph Center, the existing parking demands for the Center, identified earlier in this report, were combined with estimates of increased parking needs based on the proposed expansion in programs and staffing. The following section discusses the methodologies and assumptions used to estimate the potential future parking needs for the proposed project.
First, the existing empirical parking data collected for the site was used as a baseline. No changes were made to these observations, as the project does not propose to change or reduce these existing programs or its current staffing levels. Then, based on the programmed increases and program/participant expansions noted in the attached project summary, the anticipated parking demands associated with the increased staffing or expanded St. Joseph Center programs were identified for each time period of each weekday. For instance, the project program notes that on Wednesdays between 9:30 and 11:30 AM, a second Parent/Infant Group class totaling up to 10 students might be offered. Thus, a maximum of 10 new attendees could be present at the site during these hours, raising the potential for new parking demands beyond those identified in the survey of existing conditions.
However, a review of the empirical parking data for the St. Joseph Center indicates a very low vehicular parking use in comparison to the number of employees, clients, and visitors at the site during the day. This data, supported by observations and experience of the Centerís employees and staff, indicates that very few of the non-employees drive to the site. From anecdotal observations conducted at the site during the parking sweeps, it is estimated that fewer than 40 percent of the clients and program participants actually drive; most take public transportation or
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walk to the site. Thus, using the example noted above, the 10 additional persons attending the Parent/Infant Group classes would be expected to generate a parking need for only about four additional vehicles rather than 10 vehicles. However, although these observations were not conducted in any scientific manner and are not easily documented, the reduced vehicle usage does occur and should be accounted for in forecasts of future parking demand for the St. Joseph Center. Therefore, in order to be conservative, the estimates of future parking needs assumes that approximately 60 percent of the non-employee program participants drive to the site for their appointments or classes.
Additionally, it was assumed that 85 percent of the parents using the child care program would drive their own vehicles to the site to drop off or pick up their children. This is approximately equivalent to the regional average vehicle occupancy of 1.2 persons per vehicle as indicated in Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) publications on travel characteristics of Southern California. The estimates of future parking needs for the child care drop off and pick up activities conservatively assumed that one parking space would be required for each vehicle arrival, although the drop off and pick up activities are transient, and occur over the course of more than an hour. In actuality, it is unlikely that the drop off or pick up activities would overlap in any significant manner that would necessitate an individual parking space for each vehicle. Rather, it is most likely that one space would be used by a number of child care-related vehicles, since they account for only short duration drop off and pick up activities during the 8:00 to 9:30 AM (drop off) and 3:30 to 5:00 PM (pick up) periods.
Lastly, all of the new staff members were assumed to drive their own vehicles to the site. The accumulation of new employees was assumed to be similar to the overall employee parking activity observed for the existing facilities, although the Culinary Training Program staff were both assumed to be at the site for the full duration of the classes (8:00 AM to 4:00 PM) each weekday. The staff was further assumed to stay on site until 5:00 PM. No other significant changes to staffing, clientele, or operations of the St. Joseph Center were assumed to occur due to the proposed expansion project. Additionally, the proposed project was assumed to have no effect on the parking utilizations of the St. Clement Church or Christian Charities operations.
These assumptions are expected to result in a ìworst caseî assessment of the potential parking needs for the expanded St. Joseph Center. Due to the reasons described above, it is unlikely that the parking demands for the new St. Joseph Center facility will increase substantially beyond those observed for the existing site operations. However, in order to identify all potential future parking impacts of the project, and to ensure that no significant parking shortages occur in the future following development of the project, the most conservative approach applicable was utilized. The results of that analysis are described in the following section.
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Future Project Weekday Parking Demands
The results of the forecast future parking demands for the St. Joseph Center are summarized in the tables contained in Attachment D. As shown in these tables, the peak forecast parking demands for the site will occur on Wednesday afternoons at approximately 2:00 PM. During this time, the Center could need up to a total of approximately 69 parking spaces, based on the highly conservative methodology described previously. The analyses also indicate that peak parking demands for the St. Joseph Center could remain relatively high during the first half of the week, with peak parking demands of 63 spaces on Monday and 65 spaces on Tuesday. The maximum parking needs drop below 60 spaces for Thursday and Friday.
The development of the proposed project will not affect the operations or parking demands for the existing St. Clement Church or Catholic Charities operations. The weekday parking demands for these uses would be expected to remain as indicated in the summary of existing parking demands. However, since the future parking scheme for the site will continue to provide shared parking for all on site users within both on site parking lots, the parking needs of the entire site were quantified. The potential parking demands of the entire site (all three site uses) were estimated by combining the existing St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities parking demands (shown in the existing site parking sweep summaries) with the anticipated future parking demands for the St. Joseph Center described in the previous paragraph. These estimates are summarized in Attachment E.
Based on the existing and forecast parking demands for the site, the peak weekday parking needs for the three primary uses (proposed St. Joseph Center, St. Clement Church, and Catholic Charities) is estimated to be approximately 78 spaces, occurring between about 12:00 noon and 1:00 PM on Mondays. This total amount of parking is substantially less than the total of 134 spaces provided under the site parking lot reconfiguration plan. Under the conservative analysis assumptions used, the site would continue to utilize substantially fewer spaces than are provided, even during the peak demand periods.
Impacts on Leased Parking
As described earlier in this analysis, the parking area at the northwest corner of the site is currently leased by St. Clement Church to a parking operator. Some spaces in this parking lot are leased from the operator by local businesses. The results of the parking sweeps indicated that these spaces were fully utilized (over 90 percent occupancy) during at least one hour of each day of the weeklong survey, with the exception of Wednesday and Friday. The lot was occasionally ìover fullî, with the observed utilizations exceeding the number of striped spaces.
The results of the parking demand forecasts for future conditions at the project site indicate that the maximum anticipated parking demand for the three primary on site uses will be 78 spaces, or
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approximately 56 spaces fewer than the 134 total spaces proposed. The minimum of 56 ìavailableî spaces is five spaces fewer than the maximum observed occupancy of the leased parking area, which exhibited a peak usage of 61 spaces (three vehicles more than the striped capacity) between 11:00 AM and 12:00 noon on Monday. However, since the parking demands for each of the on site uses (including the lease parking) ìpeakî at different times, an assessment of the total future parking demands for the site, including the existing lease parking spaces, was conducted. This analysis is summarized in Attachment F.As shown in Attachment F, the peak future parking demands for all existing uses of the site, including the lease parking and the anticipated increase in parking due to the St. Joseph Center expansion, would be approximately 137 spaces. The parking demand projections for the entire site, assuming that the demand for leased parking spaces remains constant in the future, also indicate that the total site parking demand could exceed the proposed 134-space layout by up to three spaces between 10:30 AM and 1:00 PM on Monday. However, the number of parking spaces proposed would be adequate to meet the maximum forecast parking demands for all uses of the site, including the continuation of the existing lease parking operations, at all other times. Therefore, the proposed 134-space parking facility for the future site configuration could result in the displacement of a maximum of three existing users of the leased parking spaces for a period of approximately two and one-half hours, one day a week. However, it is important to note that, as shown in Attachment F, at the time of the forecast peak site parking demands, the lease lot would exceed its striped capacity by three vehicles (assuming no change from the current observed utilizations). Therefore, if the lot were not occupied beyond its striped capacity by the parking operator, and were occupied only by the 58 vehicles intended, no parking displacements would occur.
Assuming that no change in the lease parking operations would occur, a preliminary survey of the surrounding area indicated that adequate public parking spaces are available to accommodate this short-tem parking change. Thus, other than a brief nominal parking shortage (caused solely by the ìover occupancyî of the lease lot spaces by the parking operator), the maximum parking demands for the site at all other times of the week are equal to or less than the number of parking spaces provided, and therefore, no significant weekday parking impacts are anticipated to occur as a result of the project development. The completion and occupancy of the proposed St. Joseph Center expansion is not expected to result in the displacement of existing on site parking or create ìoverflowî parking impacts on the adjacent streets or in the nearby residential neighborhoods even under the ìworst caseî parking demand analyses conducted for this study.
As described in a previous section of this report, the St. Joseph Center does not currently operate on weekends, nor is it proposed to do so following development of the project. Thus, the only
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operations currently occurring on the project site on Saturday or Sunday involve the St. Clement Church, the Catholic Charities, or the operations of the leased parking spaces.The weekend parking sweeps were not conducted as frequently as the weekday sweeps, nor did they encompass the same hours. For Saturday, the parking sweeps were performed at 10:00 AM, 12:00 noon, 2:00 PM, and each hour from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. These hours were chosen due to Saturday activities by both the St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities. The Catholic Charities operates a homeless feeding program from mid-morning until approximately 4:00PM. St. Clement Church has late mass on Saturdays beginning at 5:00PM. It was assumed that this service would last approximately 60 to 90 minutes.
On Sundays, the site activity is even further reduced, with only the St. Clement Church services generally in operation. The last mass on Sundays begins at 12:15 PM. Thus, on Sundays, the parking sweeps were targeted at the morning and early afternoon, with hourly sweeps beginning at 8:00 AM and continuing through 2:00 PM.
The results of the weekend parking sweeps are contained in Attachment G. As shown in the summary, peak parking activity on Saturday occurred at approximately 2:00 PM, with 106 of the 134 total spaces occupied. The St. Clement Church accounted for approximately 25 spaces, while the Catholic Charities utilized 11 additional spaces. The St. Joseph Center occupied a total of five spaces, for parking of its five fleet vehicles. The leased parking spaces were again fully utilized, with 65 vehicles observed during the peak activity.
On Sunday, the peak parking activity occurred at approximately 1:00 PM, with all of the 134 on site spaces occupied. The St. Clement Church utilized a total of 67 spaces, the Catholic Charities occupied only one space, the St. Joseph Center occupied the five fleet vehicle spaces, and the public lot held 61 vehicles. Thus, without including the lease parking activity, Sunday resulted in the highest weekend demand for parking for the site, although the proposed St. Joseph center project will have no effect on site parking during this period. Lease parking operations will still be allowed to occur in the ìlower lotî, and more than adequate parking will be available to meet the parking demands determined from the existing site surveys. Therefore, the proposed future parking configuration will continue to provide sufficient on site parking to meet the weekend demands of the site, which is not anticipated to change as a result of development of the expanded St. Joseph Center. Conclusions
Based on the parking data collected, along with observations of the vehicular usage for both employees and clientele of the site performed by both Crain & Associates and St. Joseph Center, the proposed expansion of the Center and reconfiguration of the site parking facilities will not result in a significant impact to parking in the project vicinity. The forecast peak weekday Letter to James Bancroft
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parking demand of the completed St. Joseph Center facility, plus the unchanged parking needs of St. Clement Church and Catholic Charities, is anticipated to be a maximum of 78 spaces, which can be accommodated by the proposed 134-space parking lot. This amount of parking will also generally allow for the continued operations of the approximately 58 leased parking spaces at the northwest corner of the site without creating on street parking ìoverflowî onto the adjacent residential neighborhood streets, although during a brief period in the late morning and early afternoon on Mondays, a nominal parking ìshortageî of three spaces (based on observed existing maximum leased parking usage) could occur. It should be noted that during the peak occupancy, the lease lot exceeded its striped capacity by three vehicles. Therefore, if the lot were not occupied beyond capacity by the parking operator, no parking displacement would occur. However, adequate additional off street public parking exists in the project vicinity to accommodate this short-term condition, and no significant parking impacts are anticipated. It should be noted that this potential parking shortfall is based on highly conservative estimates of future parking needs for the St. Joseph Center. It is unlikely that the ìworst caseî parking conditions described in this report will occur.
On weekends, only the St. Clement Church, Catholic Charities facilities, and leased parking are in operation. The St. Joseph Center does not operate on weekends, and the proposed project will have no effect on the parking demands for these periods. The on site parking provided will be sufficient to meet the peak weekend demands.
If you have questions regarding the analyses or conclusions, please feel free to call me. Sincerely,
Ron Hirsch Senior Transportation Planner