Park It Here

new parking ramp seen as key to continued DT growth

Tom Giffey |

RAMPING UP DOWNTOWN. A new parking ramp is planned for the downtown area to cater to RCU and JAMF employees, as well as people attending the farmers market and other Phoenix Park events. To be completed in 2016, the ramp will have somewhere between 550 and 775 parking stalls.
RAMPING UP DOWNTOWN. A new parking ramp is planned for the downtown area to cater to RCU and JAMF employees, as well as people attending the farmers market and other Phoenix Park events. To be completed in 2016, the ramp will have somewhere between 550 and 775 parking stalls.

Continued development around Phoenix Park is gobbling up surface parking in the neighborhood, so – like the new buildings – parking in the North Barstow district will have to rise higher. The city of Eau Claire has long intended to build a parking ramp in the neighborhood, and plans became more concrete (no pun intended) following two days of meetings in early July. After huddling with city officials, downtown leaders, and representatives of the future ramp’s two biggest users (RCU and JAMF), BWBR Architects has created some new conceptual drawings of the structure.

The future ramp will be north of the RCU headquarters and east of the under-construction JAMF office, atop what is now a parking lot and part of the post office on North Barstow Street. When it’s completed in 2016, the ramp will provide parking for employees of RCU and JAMF (as part of development agreements with the two firms, the city is obligated to provide them parking). Outside the workday, it will cater to people visiting the park, the farmer’s market, and other downtown businesses and activities.

Depending on whether it is built with three decks or four, the ramp will have 550-575 or 750-775 stalls. The latter option will make it big enough to serve the needs of RCU and JAMF as well as a new commercial building that could potentially be built on the post office site facing North Barstow, said Tom Hanley, a principal with BWBR Architects, which has offices in St. Paul and Madison. (The federal government’s lease on the post office building expires at the end of September. After that, the post office will move to smaller quarters a few blocks away at 225 E. Madison St., and the city Redevelopment Authority will raze the current post office to make way for new development.)

Architects and city officials discussed the plans with members of the public July 10 at an open house at RCU. “Through our workshop process, we’ve build a consensus around these guidelines,” Hanley explained, indicating a list of principles. Among them: The new ramp will stand about 29 feet tall – that’s level with the third story of the four-story RCU headquarters next door – and it will be separated from the RCU and JAMF buildings by at least 60 feet. In addition, planners have rejected the idea of underground parking, which would add both complications and cost to the project.

When the city first explored the parking ramp idea a few years ago, the estimated cost was $7.7 million; by this spring, the estimate had risen to between $9.7 million and $10.3 million – an increase that raised a few eyebrows – in part because more costly underground parking was part of the plan. City Engineer Dave Solberg said it’s too early to estimate the cost of the project now, but he says it will be more than $7.7 million. The council is expected to vote on the parking ramp plan in September or early October, with bidding on the project taking place around January and February and construction beginning as early as March.

Solberg acknowledged that current surface lots could meet the parking needs of RCU and JAMF; however, that would preclude building other new businesses in the revitalized neighborhood. In other words, without the parking ramp, he said, “Development down there would stop.”

Hanley, the architect, said efforts will be made to make the parking ramp both aesthetically pleasing (in other words, it won’t be just a big, bland chunk of concrete) and attractive to would-be parkers (those who complain “there’s nowhere to park downtown” often ignore the half-full parking ramp next to the ex-Ramada hotel). To that end, the ramp will be designed with at-grade parking and entrances and exits that provide pedestrians with easy access to nearby activities, Hanley said.

Meanwhile, the city will soon be moving ahead with a comprehensive parking study, the data from which will be used to shape plans for the parking ramp. The City Council is expected to consider a contract for that study in late July, Solberg said.