Saturday, April 7, 2012

Palmetto Bay wants to build a downtown - Palmetto Bay - MiamiHerald.com


Verbatim from the Miami Herald article by Howard Cohen:

Palmetto Bay wants to create a downtown district in the Franjo Triangle, an area along U.S. 1 surrounding Village Hall.

City staff and officials hope their plans, which looks to include restaurants, retail and a parking garage, could transform Palmetto Bay in a way not unlike Wynwood’s revitalization from a rundown warehouse district to a walkable, thriving urban neighborhood.

By contrast, Palmetto Bay, in South Miami-Dade, where average assessed home values are $226,315, is coming from a considerably more affluent canvas than pre-boom Wynwood. But the village’s plans similarly include the development of an urban walking district. Palmetto Bay’s downtown district would feature a park-and-ride garage facility that would have up to 550 parking places, a link with its existing I-Bus service to the Dadeland South Metrorail station, and 35,000 to 40,000 square feet of retail space.

The first phase is the parking garage adjacent to the new $3.25 million Village Hall. 

Click the headline at top to read the complete article.

CLICK HERE to review the February 8, 2012, feasibility study conducted by Ballard-King & Associates (page 2-73 of the 120 pages)

Note that the project is still far off from a reality per the Village Manager. Status is that the Village Council has approved going forward with research.  Next steps require a council investigation and decision for funding to pay for the complete project. The total cost is still undetermined and will not be solid until the bids are finally received along with any projections to finish out interiors, parking fee collection mechanisms, whether tenants get parking cost rebates/credits for their employees and customers, etc.   This proposed parking garage is located in what is listed as a Neighborhood Mixed-Use district per the 2005 Village of Palmetto Bay Land Use Map

There is the one issue that raised my personal concerns: removing the free on street parking and taxing the cost of parking through installation of parking meters.  I also recommend that the Mayor and council involve the local business and property owners; the surrounding stakeholders.  Both the parking garage and the parking meters will affect the businesses.  They deserve a seat at the table to plan the future effects on their businesses be it retail, service or as landlord to the tenant businesses.


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/06/2735517/palmetto-bay-wants-to-build-a.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

4 comments:

  1. Wynwood? Really? Give me a break. First her Thalatta plan crashes and burns and now this Mayor thinks we want a downtown? Give me a break.

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  2. The garage project will never happen. This project will fail apart just like Thalatta did. The present council has no vision for the future.

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  3. The garage is a Stanczyk boondoggle in the making and doomed to failure, with the taxpayers holding the bag. This is not a green project. It is a scam to tax commuters so she can build a monument to herself. The number of commuters will never be sufficient to offset the bus’ own pollution based upon the simple fact that this service is redundant. There is a larger, more efficient, bus run by the county in bus lanes that run less than 750 feet to the west of the proposed parking garage. The metrobus runs more passengers on a single engine than do the Village shuttles. Does Palmetto Bay even have an estimate on what the fuel efficiency will be per passenger mile? I would bet that it will not come close to the County Bus Lane fuel efficiency per passenger mile. As far as pollution, Palmetto Bay will be more than doubling the carbon footprint of the mass transit available. Isn’t it ironic that Miami-Dade County can do this more efficiently than Palmetto Bay? Does Shelley Stanczyk really believe that the County will allow Palmetto Bay to take paying buslane commuters away from it's system?

    Watch the project go through the usual Stanczyk course of futility: her gaining attention, then her own political base takes her to task, then the entire project make a very public death spiral when even she will vote against it. This should be termed the Shelley Stanczyk rule of project futility: The value or prospect for success of any Palmetto Bay project diminishes proportionate to the amount of influence that she exerts on that project.

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  4. Mayor Stanczyk thinks building a garage is economic development? This is absurd. This is another example of her “shoot, ready, aim” lack of common sense and lack of attention to reality. Let me provide her with a cold splash of reality. This is voodoo economics in action. I second the statements above and think that the parking garage is all a smoke screen by this tax and spend Mayor Shelley Stanzcyk to install parking meters to tax parking and increase revenue, all so she has even more of our money to spend.

    This is just another step toward bigger, less business friendly or even shopper friendly government. Now Palmetto Bay will go into the parking enforcement business. How many parking enforcement people will all this require? I guess this is her job creation program: parking enforcement officers. I guarantee you that this mayor has no clue how much each parking enforcement officer will cost, including payroll, benefits, uniforms, and other overhead including equipment such as vehicles, communication and automated ticket devices. There are additional costs of the supervisors, The newly increased overhead will be astounding. She doesn’t care; she only creates it and sticks us with the bills. It is the business owners who pay for it in aggravation and loss of customers caused by disgruntled customers who receive parking tickets or have to pay extra for shopping in Palmetto Bay and end up moving to shops with free parking. It appears that this mayor and council think we live in Coral Gables. She must think her own store is located on Miracle Mile where people are willing to live with the parking meters. Mayor Stanzcyk needs to drive around this town with her eyes open to see what is needed for area businesses. It is not more cost and aggravation.

    There are just so many details that this Mayor never seems to consider before she jumps into these absurd ideas of hers. Who will pay for any court proceedings to enforce any tickets? Parking enforcement will not make a profit. It should not make a profit. I am betting that the $200,000 alleged profit listed in the feasibility study will be consumed by parking enforcement costs.

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