Motorists circle the neighborhood, business owners protect their turf and residents express frustration.
By RON MATUS
Published May 30, 2003
[Times photos:Stefanie Boyar]
An SUV searches for a parking spot at Xtreme Total Health & Fitness on S Howard Avenue, a lot that handles overflow parking from nearby restaurants and bars.
Parking along S Howard is at a premium, with motorists sometimes circling the neighborhood repeatedly in search of parking spots.
A sign in front of Mac's Sports Pub warns drivers who are not guests of the pub.
SOHO - The search for parking on S Howard Avenue has evolved into a torturous dance.
Take the cramped parking lot at Royal Palace, the Thai place.
At supper time on Friday, drivers tango, fender to fender, bumper to bumper, as they simultaneously attempt impossible 3-point turns.
A few blocks north, patrons of Po'Boys Creole Cafe break dance with wheels instead of spinning bodies. They circle at high rates of speed, around and around and around the block, until one of eight spaces available for 80 people finally opens.
"It takes a while, especially at this hour," said Darryl Smith, a downtown legal assistant who was circling his blue LeMans at lunch time last week. The last time he ate at Po'Boys, he hunted parking for five to seven minutes.
And that was after the noon rush.
So it goes on restaurant row.
With new bars and dining spots, and SoHo's soaring reputation, easy parking gets snapped up as fast as onion rings at Old Meeting House. A few years ago, visitors could at least straggle on to side streets in Oscawana, Courier City or other adjacent neighborhoods. But with booming development funneling more and more resident cars to the curb, pickins are slim for drinkers and diners.
The result: frustration for visitors, neighbors and business owners alike.
Don't look for solutions anytime soon.
City officials and SoHo business owners studied the possibility of a parking garage several years ago. Their conclusion: Howard is just too long for one garage to effectively serve everybody.
Many business owners "didn't feel it would be helpful to them," said Jack Morriss, the city's public works director.
The city floated the possibility of new parking lots near Howard, too, but neighborhoods gasped.
Visitors aren't the only ones inconvenienced.
Soon after Po'Boys opened next door, cars filled the lot behind Terri Backhus' law office. None of them belonged to her, her law partner or their employees.
"It was like, "Come on,"' Backhus said. "We had no place to park."
Even now, with tow away signs posted on the oaks, people still park in the lot, willing to play chicken with tow trucks.
Next door, cars park illegally under the Ravioli Company's gazebo. One time, a car hit the back door. On another occasion, co-owner Dwight Otis watched as a car full of young women pulled up, looking to anchor. When he asked them to leave, "they tossed beer bottles at me," he said.
Damien Burdick, Po'Boys owner, acknowledges the problem. He's suffering, too.
"If there was more parking, we'd do more business," he said.
The city used national fire code standards to determine that Po'Boys' maximum occupancy is 60 people - even though Burdick says 80 people pack his place on a good night. Based on the fire code numbers, the city determined the restaurant needed 15 parking spaces. (New restaurants must have one parking space for every four occupants, the code says.)
Technically, Po'Boys has 15 spaces. But seven of them - including several for employees - are at the Uniques De France furniture store next door. Since the store is on the same commercial lot, its parking spaces figured into the calculation, even though Uniques De France doesn't allow Po'Boys customers to use them.
Uniques is closing next month. But even then, are 15 spaces enough?
"Per code, it is," said Kit Alexander, the city's commercial site review supervisor.
Whether the code requires enough is a different question. No formula can take an establishment's popularity into consideration, Alexander said. And S Howard is nothing if not full of hot new places.
Parking requirements are tougher for new businesses now than they were two years ago, Alexander said. On top of that, the city has been saying no to developers who want variances to build fewer parking spaces for new projects. Last fall, city officials turned down a request from the developers of SoHo Pointe - the retail center that includes Panera Bread - to reduce the required number of spaces from 108 to 99.
The problem is, parking just can't keep pace.
Last fall, Po'Boys and the Dubliner pub opened around the corner from each other. Between the two, nearly 300 people can squeeze in to chow on shrimp etouffee and down dark beers.
Dubliner owner Noel Duffy said the pub has six to eight parking spaces.
His advice: "Get here early."
Under city policy, if one restaurant closes and another moves in, the new one must only meet the previous parking requirements even if they are less than ideal. Many restaurants, such as the Dubliner, are grandfathered in.
To make up for the deficiency, some restaurants are getting help from their commercial neighbors.
At Po'Boys, Burdick directs customers across the street to 10 spaces at Sew Fast, where the owners have agreed to take the overflow from his restaurant.
Royal Palace and Mac's Sports Pub send customers to Xtreme Total Health & Fitness. Cappy's Pizza invites them to park at the small office building across the street.
More deals might be possible.
But in the meantime, visitors disperse down side streets - and into neighborhoods.
On Westland Avenue, a block east of Howard, traffic slows to a crawl on Friday and Saturday nights. On the other end of S Howard, customers from St. Bart's Island House, formerly Le Bordeaux, fan into Hyde Park.
Residents say there's no room left for them.
"Right now, my son's car is parked in the back yard," said Jeanne Holton-Carufel, president of the Historic Hyde Park Neighborhood Association.
Not everyone is sympathetic.
Businesses aren't the only ones adding to parking woes, said developer Frank Kane, who owns residential and commercial property in the area, including the building that houses Sangria's and the Yellow Door restaurants.
The new residents of Hyde Park and surrounding neighborhoods are swamping side streets with cars, too.
But he's not upset. The way he sees it, that's a good thing.
It proves things are happening.
"Name me one great city," Kane said, "that doesn't have a parking problem."
