By Jeff Lipton
Woodmere merchants, who have pleaded for more parking for their shopping district, last week moved a step closer to having their prayers answered. Plans have been submitted to build a double-decker parking lot where a current lot now stands.
Architects have drawn up plans to construct a deck on top of a current municipal lot, on the south side of Central Avenue, between Franklin Place and Irving Place, near the firehouse. If approved, the project will increase the number of spaces currently there, from 85 to about 170.
Sy Glass, president of the Woodmere Merchants Association, said he has been working on the plans for more than six months in an effort to bring relief to merchants, who have complained about the lack of parking along Broadway. He said he was waiting for the architects to give him an estimate on how much the double-decker lot will cost before he shows the package to the Town of Hempstead.
Mr. Glass unveiled the blueprints for the new double-decker parking lot during the Tuesday, September 19, meeting of the Woodmere Merchants Association.
Despite a program to revitalize the shopping district, called Operation Downtown, which has improved sidewalks and brought in new street lights, the lack of parking has cast a pall over the shopping district. The new look has lured several new businesses to set up shop in Woodmere, but the stranglehold on parking still remains an obstacle, the merchants association president said.
"You can't shop, you can't move around this town," Mr. Glass told an intimate gathering of shopkeepers during the September 19 meeting, which was held at the Woodmere-Lawrence United Methodist Church, located at 1023 Broadway. "We need parking spaces. That's the help we need in this town."
"We can fix the stores up and we can fix up the streets, but we may still have empty stores if there is nowhere to park," the Woodmere business leader said.
He added that shopping districts in Garden City, Great Neck and Hauppauge have been successfully using double-decker parking.
An additional 1,000 children will attend Hewlett-Woodmere schools in the near future, he said, which means that families are moving into the neighborhood, placing a further strain on local parking.
Architects are working on a cost analysis to determine whether the project is feasible, before the plans are submitted to the Town of Hempstead for approval.
The Town of Hempstead, Mr. Glass said, could install meters and collect the revenue from the lot as the reward for building it. "I told them you put in the meters, you maintain them and you keep the money," Mr. Glass said. "They can keep it clean and we're the benefactors of it.
"I'll tell you right now that it looks pretty good," he added.
The proposed additional parking is another move to help rejuvenate the shopping district. Other plans proposed include the replacement of 12 light poles on Broadway between Irving and Franklin. The town has also discussed placing big concrete planters on streets corners on Irving Place and Conklin Avenue. "There will be a big improvement there and people are really looking to buy property over there...We're trying to beautify everything, beautify the town," Mr. Glass said.
The drawings for the double-decker lot have been prepared by Wax Ferraro Associates in Cedarhurst. According to Norman Wax, a partner in the firm, the price of construction could be about $800,000 and take close to a year to complete. The project would mean placing a deck over the current parking set-up and would be furnished with stairs and an elevator for handicap accessibility. The double-decker lot would be perfectly safe since the land in Woodmere is extremely stable, he said.
"It's pretty simple and straight forward," Mr. Wax said. "It's not a major structure.
"I would say it's very feasible," he added. "I think it's necessary. The problem is that they don't have the parking to support the Woodmere Business District. This is a simple, very effective solution."
He added that Great Neck has been aided greatly by the number of parking structures built in the community. "Woodmere just needs a similar infusion," Mr. Wax said. "This would definitely ease up the parking concerns in Woodmere, for a reasonable sum of money."
Mr. Wax said the upper deck of the parking lot could be set aside for long-term parking, which would be available for shopkeepers, with the bottom for shopper use.
Gary Hudes, president of the Nassau County Council of Chambers of Commerce and a Republican Town of Hempstead Board candidate from Levittown, recently suggested it may be a better idea to find land and convert it into a lot, saying a double-decker lot is a solution in some cases.
The cost would run about $10,000 per space, which would come to $800,000. "What piece of land could you buy for $800,000?" Mr. Wax said, explaining why a double-decker parking structure would make more sense than searching for a piece of property to convert into another parking lot.
A multi-level parking lot was the focus of much debate in the 1980s in the Village of Cedarhurst as a solution to parking problems there. But some village residents expressed concern about security, specifically that the crime rate may rise once the structure is built. The plan was never developed.
