While I wouldn't say your counterpoints are laughable, I do disagree with everything you have said. First, the revenue generated by a municipal parking lot, compared to the revenue gained from selling a lot and then receiving tax revenue from the operation of a hotel isn't even comparable. Keep in mind that the Harvard Vanguard building in Davis sold two years ago for something like $40 million. That should give you an idea of what some of those parking lots would be worth to a developer.
Second, a lot of visitors to Boston that would be staying in a hotel don't rent cars, or, for that matter, ride the T; instead they use taxis. I certainly wouldn't rent a car if I came to Boston, and of the people I do business with from out of town, almost none of them rent cars (though I do work in the financial district, which, lacking ample surface parking, by your logic, should be a complete ghost town). Further, people who would be staying in a Davis hotel are not likely to be in town to do business out on 128, for example. Instead, I'd guess that a lot of visitors would choose Davis because they're visiting Tufts or looking for a less expensive alternative to Cambridge hotels and so the T or taxis would work just fine for them. Half a parking space per room is perfectly sufficient.
Lastly, lack of parking only kills certain types of businesses in certain environments. A strip mall in Acton without parking would be doomed, but even Home Depot (which generally needs tons of parking) has found a way to be successful in Manhattan. If lack of parking, as a rule, truly killed businesses, then rents in Harvard Square would not be some of the most expensive in the nation. As a matter of fact, if you were looking to generalize, the value of real estate in the Boston area is generally inverse to the availability of parking. And commercial real estate values are set almost entirely by the value of the leases for such properties, and business owners don't typically sign expensive leases if it doesn't make financial sense to do so (with a few exceptions, such as luxury goods makers who are willing to lose money on their flagship 5th Avenue stores).
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Date: 2007-02-28 03:38 pm (UTC)Second, a lot of visitors to Boston that would be staying in a hotel don't rent cars, or, for that matter, ride the T; instead they use taxis. I certainly wouldn't rent a car if I came to Boston, and of the people I do business with from out of town, almost none of them rent cars (though I do work in the financial district, which, lacking ample surface parking, by your logic, should be a complete ghost town). Further, people who would be staying in a Davis hotel are not likely to be in town to do business out on 128, for example. Instead, I'd guess that a lot of visitors would choose Davis because they're visiting Tufts or looking for a less expensive alternative to Cambridge hotels and so the T or taxis would work just fine for them. Half a parking space per room is perfectly sufficient.
Lastly, lack of parking only kills certain types of businesses in certain environments. A strip mall in Acton without parking would be doomed, but even Home Depot (which generally needs tons of parking) has found a way to be successful in Manhattan. If lack of parking, as a rule, truly killed businesses, then rents in Harvard Square would not be some of the most expensive in the nation. As a matter of fact, if you were looking to generalize, the value of real estate in the Boston area is generally inverse to the availability of parking. And commercial real estate values are set almost entirely by the value of the leases for such properties, and business owners don't typically sign expensive leases if it doesn't make financial sense to do so (with a few exceptions, such as luxury goods makers who are willing to lose money on their flagship 5th Avenue stores).