Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
U.S. chain retailers are notorious for overestimating their parking needs in transit-rich neighborhoods. They could probably save themselves a ton of money by actually listening to planners and the community.
There's a huge 10-year old retail center in the South Bronx that has thousands of garage parking spaces. When it was built, locals insisted that the developer was wasting his money, as the neighborhood has like 30% auto ownership, and lower income households aren't gonna pay for garage parking anyways. They built it, and the garage sits 80% empty.
When Whole Foods was scouting Williamsburg, Brooklyn locations, the big holdup was their silly parking requirement. All the Manhattan Whole Foods have no parking, but for whatever reason, they insisted on parking for the Williamsburg location, even though car ownership is the same as Manhattan. They finally opened, with a paid underground garage, and it sits mostly empty. Neighborhood residents don't have cars, and those that do aren't typically gonna shell out $10 to pick up a few groceries.
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I can't speak for Brooklyn, but if Englewood is similar to other low-income Chicago n'hoods then roughly 2/3 of households have access to a car, and they're likely to use it for grocery shopping. CTA might have a Green Line stop across the street, but the density is a fraction of what you find in Williamsburg OR the South Bronx.
Based on Streetview images (May 2019), the parking is
hardly empty.