photo by Boyd Loving
Dollars and CentsÂ
February 25,2018
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The step for the in the Hudson garage process will be the Village Council reviewing the results of the Walker Feasibility Study at the next Public Work Session on Wednesday, February 28. The study will provide a planning-level analysis of net operating income potential for the parking system when the new garage is complete, including rate adjustments that will help maintain a parking utility that is self-supporting. Armed with a thorough financial analysis, we can then move forward with discussing contract negotiations and final selection.
Councilwomen Bernie Walsh told us ,” I was impressed by the professionalism of all who presented. They brought their A game and appeared to be genuine in their desire to provide the best option to Ridgewood for a parking structure.I had to recuse myself from the Haas proposal due to a conflict. I was pleased that the time frame is shorter than expected which would lead less disruption to the Village during construction.”
Deputy Mayor Michael Sedon also gave us some similar feedback , ” I thought all presenters highlighted interesting points and the four-hour meeting gave us a lot to think about. Maintenance was included in a past Walker financial report for the bigger garage of two years ago, so the idea that this cost would eat into the revenue generated by the garage has always been on my radar. The developers presenting did a good job this time around at highlighting those costs, while hammering home the importance of maintaining this critical piece of infrastructure to protect any potential investment in our Village.
The decision the declare the Hudson Street parking lot an area in need of redevelopment was very useful in these ongoing discussions, which has given this council the flexibility to work directly with the developer chosen allowing us to bring a project to fruition which is cost effective, efficient and aesthetically pleasing.
Finally the much awaited financial report from Walker will be discussed this Wednesday. With all this important information converging simultaneously it will provide this council with the most current picture as to how the entire project could work to benefit our Village. I am looking forward to the continued discussion as the complete picture comes into focus.”
Let’s focus on the facts the village has already paid tens of thousands of dollars to gather: do we have enough existing parking inventory to meet demand? The 2015 Walker “HUDSON STREET PARKING GARAGE PRELIMINARY FINANCIAL ANALYSIS” found here: https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2015walkerFinal.pdf is an amazingly comprehensive study of existing village parking. The key findings, on the report pages 15, 16, 17, 19, and appendix page 4 clearly show we do not use the parking we have on weekdays and most importantly, on Saturday nights. On appendix page 4, the bottom table “EXISTING WEEKEND CONDITIONS – PUBLIC” shows 32% or 194 available public parking spaces at 7pm.
Page 29 sums it up financially.
2019 – New Revenue $273,312, New Garage Expenses $291,041. So you are losing money even before debt service, which is $726,000.
Financially this is a disaster.
Additionally, the original report bragged about “a natural uptick in revenue as Parkmobile becomes more utilized.”
That projection didn’t work out so well.
I truly do not comprehend how we can be considering increasing the hours of parking meters and raising the hourly meter price when this has already failed miserably. It isn’t even a theory.
NO GARAGE or NO BACKBONE?
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My guess is that NO BACKBONE will win and the Ginormous garage will be built…
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Pathetic.
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Mayor Knudsen and council – do not build this garage. You are charged with the finances of the village and this is a monumental waste,
We cannot believe that we are to spend more money on a study. We did that a few years ago,