By Suzanne Klapp

The latest case before Scottsdale City Council which requires in-lieu parking credits for a restaurant/bar could be described as an owner in a Catch-22 situation. The new Old Town Tavern (OTT) request is to expand its existing business, and the city requires the owner to pay indefinitely $80,000 per year for 41 parking spaces somewhere in the nearby area.

Downtown businesses usually occupy small lots with limited parking. During the 1970s, the City formed an Improvement District that assessed property owners south of Indian School Road, leading to the construction of five parking garages/lots in Old Town.

Next, Scottsdale adopted the in-lieu parking ordinance in the 1990’s responding to area redevelopment and to centralize parking in garages or shared lots. Since then, many businesses have paid into the parking fund. The $80,000 tab per year for OTT is the largest amount ever assessed and a large nut for the business to absorb.

What could be a win-win for Scottsdale and a means for helping solve parking problems is a no-win scenario for the business owner. His case was delayed while the Council obtains additional information about the conditional use permit and the parking agreement.

It takes a certain level of guts and risk to do business in Old Town, or in the case of OTT, to expand a business that has existed just west of the Civic Center Park for 40 years.

I owned retail stores in Scottsdale and Phoenix for 20 years, yet I never located one in Old Town specifically because of scarce parking. The City of Scottsdale plays a landlord role in controlling parking in the area, and the addition of necessary parking has not kept up with demand and the City’s own needs since the last parking garage, the two-level Parking Corral structure, was constructed in 2003 on Brown Ave. It was engineered for more parking levels to be added later.

My businesses were in retail shopping centers because the landlords ensured there was sufficient nearby parking. The City of Scottsdale has a responsibility to provide adequate parking, particularly in Old Town, since it has been extracting money for years from businesses to invest in shared parking through the in-lieu requirement. The proposed enlarged Brown Ave. Parking Corral helps meet that commitment.

Over the past two decades, hundreds of parking spaces in Old Town/downtown have disappeared because of redevelopment of properties in the area, such as the renovation of Scottsdale Stadium in 2019 and subsequent loss of 600 spaces.

In 2021, Scottsdale invested $35 million to transform Civic Center Park, resulting in an increase in major events from 35 to 85 planned each season. The City added no parking for this more intense entertainment use.

Recently, Scottsdale lost another 100 parking spaces it had leased from HonorHealth because the hospital needed them back.

Old Town has grown dramatically along with property and sales tax revenues in the last 23 years. We have waited that long for expansion at the Parking Corral.

For 12 years, I was a Councilwoman and took part in Council’s 2019 sub-committee to vet capital projects requiring voter approval. We held public meetings at City Hall to address residents’ and businesses’ needs. Charrette-style presentations took place in six regions—north, central, and south—where we reviewed and discussed specific aspects of each proposed project. We eliminated certain lower-priority projects to reduce property tax impact.

The Council, including two current Council members, debated the final list and unanimously approved 58 projects, funded by bonds totaling $319 million. The projects were on the ballot in three questions, and voters overwhelmingly approved all three, including building Old Town parking structures.

It is time for the current Council to step up to its final approval of the expanded Parking Corral construction contract to ensure Scottsdale fulfills its obligations to surrounding businesses and to voters. Certain council members want to delay the vote and order a parking study. Why examine a project that voters have already approved? Will this action delay other capital projects? A study may be an attempt to kill the garage project. If that occurs, then the in-lieu parking ordinance is ineffective, and the parking structure commitment will be violated.