The Village Manager is correct. There currently is a parking surplus on several days during the week and on weekends. This information conflicts with data compiled over the years by trained parrking professionals who performed studies of the parking situation in Ridgewood.
So what has happened ?? Ridgewood did have a severe parking problem as outlined in study after study conducted by professionals over the past 89 years. More recently observations have been made by residents and others that the parking problem is not nearly as severe as heretofore thought. The question then is what has changed ? It is this writers belief there has been a fundamental and dramatic shift the way people shop…..and to a lesser extent how they dine. The web has deciminated retail stores both large and small and this is not going to change.More and more people prefer to shop online and this trend shall remain.
Downtown shopping may become obsolete as virtually anything you desire is only a few clicks away ….and can be delivered. right to your doorstep. The problem we are facing is the death of the traditional “downtown” as we know it. Businesses and restaurants will leave, empty buildings will profilerate and what was once described as a vibrant but “quaint” downtown comprised of older buildings containing a wide mix of tenants will suddenly be preceived as seedy and tired when vacancies rise and business flee town.
What will the new Council do to turn this toxic situation around and restore the vitality of the downtown. Some aergue that a garage would provide the majic cure. While it may help it will not provide the elixir that will get the CBD back on its feet again. It will take a garage AND a lot of work to re-build a downtown that can effectively compete with web providers and mega -stores. We can do it but it will cost money ….lots of it and it will take a comprehensive plan….whcih unfortunately no one seems interested in undertaking and.nor do we even have the skills to create such a plan. At present Ridgewood is in the worst possible position
Hogwash.
I’m confused as to what, exactly, “Reader” expects the Village government to do? If the landlords are content with empty storefronts for months on end, then that’s that. They could lower rents, but that hurts their bottom line. Their misguided solution is increase the crowd level with high density housing – so we’ll have more people ignoring the shops in the CBD, and more Amazon deliveries to the new apartment blocks. This is a market issue that can’t be legislated away.
Any business that provides an incremental service will continue to survive in the downtown setting. Restaurants provide cooking and service, in addition to a social atmosphere. Bars provide a meeting place, booze, and a bartender who will listen to your bellyaching when nobody else cares (the bartender doesn’t care either, by the way…and that dancer at Satin Dolls is not working her way through college, and doesn’t think you’re funny, but I digress). Certain goods, like high end clothes that need to be fitted, will still sell. Tailors, barbers, etc etc. See a pattern? Even a used guitar store that buys select instruments online, sets them up well, and offers them to be played before they’re bought might do well. But the traditional consumer goods re-seller is dead on arrival – they can’t pay their rent on razor thin markups necessitated by competition from Amazon.
The garage is being sought by developers that are desperate to over develop with high density housing which i believe serves no purpose in the village. 35 units per acre is too much.
10:12 – as I said above, the pro development crowd wants more feet on the sidewalk hence more customers for their business. I’m kind of surprised Mr. “Laissez-faire” isn’t behind this, because it really would be the free market in action. However, the Free Market is temperamental, while development is permanent. I personally think the new residents would only slightly boost patronage of the CBD, while placing inordinate demands on our infrastructure (schools, water, sewer etc). So the business owners and CBD landlords would get a little shot in the arm, while the rank and file citizens who subsidize their services will just have another line item added to their quarterly bill. That’s why I voted NO this morning.
i suggest econ 101 , cronyism is not “Laissez-faire” nice try and neither is forcing the tax payers to build a garage for private businesses
Increasing meter rates throughout the CBD to pay for a parking deck to be used by restaurant patrons is not Free Market.
Increasing meter rates throughout the CBD to pay for a parking deck to be used by a too large housing development is not Free Market.
The parking deck should be built ONLY if it supports itself. Parking studies have proven that impossible.
Figure out what the deck supports and let the developers and commercial property owners contribute the rest..
Downtown needs to have businesses that can’t be replaced by online services such as haircutters, tatoo shops, nightclubs etc. Only then we will have the vibrancy we’re all so badly want to experience. 🙂
Seriously now on a cloudy day downtown looks like apocalypse with its depressing colors, unpaved streets, messy parking lots. If it gets better looking and more cheerful and orderly then maybe it will draw the attention of people or businesses.
I don’t expect the new VC to be able to do much. I voted NO to parking last November and also NO today. My whole family did.
10:51 am just curios where are the unpaved streets?
Let the parking garage bond be paid EXCLUSIVELY using parking fees and fees paid by downtown businesses. And absolutely NO recourse to any village revenues.
Let such a revenue bond be floated – bond investors (aka free market) will be able to quickly tell us what they think about the potential for downtown.
Bring back Woolworth’s, the hardware store, the dry goods store, Sealfon’s, Farm View Pork Store, the butchers, the fish shops, three bookstores….
Having the government build a garage is not Laissez-faire… what school did you go to?
************** VOTE NO ****************
Red Bank has a similar downtown commercial district, which was also taken over by restaurants over the past few years. A major difference is an abundance of municipal parking. However, retail vacancies are at an all time high and all of the parking in the world hasn’t rescued their commercial district. The internet is here to stay. The Chamber of Commerce and the merchants have to adjust to the market because what they are selling, we’re not buying.
The “toxic” situation has not arrived. You are imagining a Walking Dead future. Relax.
People will shop if there are products that they want, at a good price.
Restaurants do fine. They all wish that they could sell alcohol and make big bucks on the bar. The restaurants, like Valley, are regional businesses. People come to Ridgewood to dine out, many love the fact that we have so many byob establishments. This is the crux of the “parking problem”. People from all over Bergen county come to Ridgewood. The busineses would like more but feel that they are hampered by lack of parking.
They need to come up with a solution that does not rely on me for funding.
Why do restaurants take parking spaces from the village for valet parking? There are several restaurants in town that do this.
There is a lot to be said for making landlords. business owners and developers of any non-residental property pay for a parking garage. If they want it they should pay for it……end of story. They should also pay for any shortfall in revenue relating to the operation of a garage. Conversely, they should NOT be forced to pay any expenses relating to the school system. This burden should be placed solely on those who use or have used the school system. Each should be solely responsible for paying for that which they use or from which they or derive a benefit.
4:17 nice try. School system is required. Parking deck is not.
The new council priority is not revitilization of the CBD. You may have noticed Valley, garages and high density housing are hot button issues.
Have a sale
Who of us in private business is waiting for the government to help us out? The CBD businesses have done a lot to promote the downtown. They should not tell the residents that we should buy them a garage.
Since the parking authority does nit have a garage to oay for, where does all the money go? The village manager presents it like a cash cow for the garage. Are they saving the revenues in a piggy bank?