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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

Why is cost of Pacific Park parking off the charts? (more than $100,000 per space)

Something doesn't compute. Check out the chart below from Forest City Enterprises' Form 10-Q, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission 11/3/15.

The cost of "Pacific Park - Parking" is $99.6 million. The footnote points to 950 parking spaces, part of a total of 1,200 spaces for both arenagoers and residents. (Remember, parking was reduced.)

That's $104,842 per space, which is off the charts, and seemingly twice that of peak numbers in the city. I asked Forest City for any explanation, but didn't get an answer.

How much should parking cost?

According to a December 2013 Department of City Planning study (as Streetsblog cited 1/23/14), with emphasis added:
According to industry data, the median parking structure costs in New York City are $21,000 per space or $63 per square foot to build – the highest in the country.12 In contrast, the national average for structured parking costs $16,000 per space or $48 per square foot to build.13 These estimates are for parking structures generally, and do not account for factors specific to accessory residential parking in a dense environment – the cost of providing underground parking, which includes excavation and is sensitive to subsurface conditions, and the structural demands of supporting a residential building above the parking facility. Anecdotal information suggests that these factors can increase the cost of constructing structured parking to as much as $50,000 per space in higher-density areas. 

Rising costs

The Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park parking tab has gone up somewhat. In this 6/5/15 Forest City investor presentation, the cost was $90.6 million. A 10% increase is not radical. But the previous base of even $90.6 million was already a huge sum.

It's not clear whether the sum encompasses other costs of some kind or reflect a per-space cost that is higher than any peer project.

If the latter, it would be understandable why they wanted to reduce the amount of parking from the 3,670 spaces analyzed in the 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement to 2,896 parking space analyzed in the 2014 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement and then the "reduced parking alternative" of 1,200 total.

An experiment emerges

Generally speaking, a reduction in parking in a transit-rich area makes sense. In this case, the very limited arena-related parking, in combination with no residential parking permits, means more people will compete for limited free street parking.

In this case, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park will be an experiment, as arenagoers who still drive will compete with that fraction--unknown, for now, of course--of residents who have cars.

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