Parking Shortage in Stamford? Nooooo!

Sometimes life in Stamford seems all gloom and doom.

Parking? There may not be empty spaces in Bell Street garage
Stamford Advocate article By Wynne Parry 03/23/2008


STAMFORD - Take a weekday spin through one of the three city-run parking garages, and you'll see plenty of empty spaces - even at Bell Street garage, the most popular.

But with development projects and more commuters on the way, the days of abundant parking may be numbered, said Ben Barnes, the city's director of operations.

Hoping to head off a parking shortage at the largest and most centrally located Bell Street facility, Barnes has asked a longtime tenant, Saturn of Stamford, to move the new vehicles it keeps on the roof parking level to the Bedford Street garage.

Tom Waurishuk, Saturn's general manager, is not happy about moving when other businesses rent space for their employees in the same garage.

"There is a wonderful thing, it is called first-come, first-serve, and we were there first," he said.

Saturn began storing the cars for its Stamford dealership at the garage about 13 years ago, Waurishuk said. Since then, the city dealership closed about two years ago, so the cars now are taken to White Plains, N.Y., to be sold.

In all that time, Waurishuk said he has watched much of the Bell Street garage sit empty, adding, "I don't believe it will ever fill up; it never has."

The city has sold daytime permits for 720 of Bell Street's 850 spaces, including Saturn's. In addition, the garage gets an average of 110 "transient" parkers each day, Barnes said.

Many of the latter group arrive downtown in the evening, so the garage can handle many more
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permits and transient drivers than it has spaces. "It's not unlike the airline business, where it makes some sense to oversell," he said.

A midmorning drive through the Bell Street garage on Thursday revealed about three levels of occupied spaces and another three that were mostly empty.

However, this may change as development plans bring in more drivers and existing parking is lost to construction, particularly near the train station and in downtown.

In the next few years, the city is likely to lose the lease for the St. John's parking lot it operates that is owned by the Diocese of Bridgeport. These 246 spaces are across the street from the Bell Street garage.

In the past two weeks, Barnes said he received requests for several hundred additional spaces in the Bell Street garage from four entities, including UBS.

"People are apprehensive about the availability of parking, so they want to lock up as much as they can," he said.

UBS rents 350 spaces at the Bell Street garage, but the additional request was prompted by Antares' development plans for the former Manger Electric site, part of which UBS uses for parking near the train station.

Train commuters, plagued by a shortage of spots and long waiting lists to park at the station, may face more problems when a 23-year-old station parking garage is replaced.

Also, W&M Properties, owner of the Metro Center office building at Station Place and Washington Boulevard, has approval to build an office tower and three apartment buildings on the same block as the train station.

Moving Saturn from the Bell Street garage makes sense, said City Rep. Robert "Gabe" DeLuca, R-14, chairman of the Transportation Committee. "My feeling is open more space for the public."

Despite the move, the terms of Saturn's lease would remain the same, earning the city $172,800 over three years.

Saturn is the best entity to move because it simply stores cars and won't need to ask workers to walk farther, Barnes said.