Parking at the Santa Rosa Plaza mall.

Santa Rosa Plaza parking changes spur debate

CATHY BUSSEWITZ
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A plan released last week to begin charging some shoppers to park at Santa Rosa Plaza has stirred up a stew of emotions - perhaps more emotions than one would expect over a handful of bucks to park a car for a few hours.

But as any business knows, customers generally don't want to pay for something they previously enjoyed for free.

And that's the situation in downtown Santa Rosa, where small business owners, mall shoppers and employees of downtown businesses who park at the mall are stewing about the changes planned by Simon Property Group.

Shop owners at the Plaza fear customers will choose to shop at places where they can park for free, such as nearby Coddingtown Mall, which is co-owned by Simon.

"The mall doesn't ask us, the store owners, what we feel about it, what we think would be best for the situation," said Rick Whittington, general manager at Optical World. "I've talked to several, and not one of them thought this was a good idea. And if they had the opportunity to voice their opinion, every one of them would have said &‘don't do it.'"

Whittington's customers easily spend 90 minutes in his store alone. It takes about 45 minutes to conduct an eye exam, and choosing frames and navigating options for lenses often takes just as long. He is considering offering customers a discount to cover parking costs.

"It seems like the consensus is, people aren't very happy about it, and saying they'll go to Coddingtown and park for free," Whittington said. "And it's a Simon mall."

Of Simon's hundreds of properties, Santa Rosa Plaza will be one of only a handful that charge for parking. In larger cities, like Miami, Boston and Washington, D.C., parking is considerably more expensive, starting at $2 to $9 for the first hour, and going as high as $35 for a 20- to 24-hour stay at the Copley Place parking garage in Boston.

In Santa Rosa, parking for the first 90 minutes will be free. Up to three hours will cost $2, four hours will cost $4, six hours will cost $8, and more than six will cost $9.

Small as Santa Rosa may seem compared to cities like San Francisco where paying for parking is the norm, it's not the smallest of the cities where Simon charges for parking. In White Plains - roughly a third of the size of Santa Rosa - parking costs $3 for the first two hours, with a daily maximum of $9 per day.

The decision to charge for parking is not about a city's size, however. It has more to do with the fact that parking options surrounding the shopping centers are not free, said Kelly Hartsell, regional vice president for Simon Property Group.

"It's really not based on population, it's based on proximity to an urban setting," Hartsell said.

Coddingtown Mall is considered suburban, so the company has no plans to charge for parking there, she said.

Mall officials say the main reason they want to start charging for parking is to free up spaces for shoppers. About 400 of the mall's 3,000 parking spaces are taken before the shopping center opens by folks who work in other business downtown, taking advantage of free parking instead of paying for meters or garages.

Parking expert Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at University of California Los Angeles, said he came to Santa Rosa to speak at a city meeting several years ago and observed the problem in the mall's lot.

"You could see all kinds of people early in the morning, parking in the mall parking lot, and walking right out of the lot and into the telephone company," Shoup said. "The ones I saw parked right in the best spaces near the stores, so the real customers have to park out in the sun."

Sharp says if Santa Rosa wants to become more like San Francisco or Portland, Ore., it should charge for parking, like those cities do. If it wants to develop more like Los Angeles, it should keep parking free.

But people who work and shop downtown are more concerned with the immediate impacts. Downtown employees who park at the mall say they're less likely to make impulse purchases if they're not parking there for free.

"They're going to lose business if people are going to have to pay," said Jennie Lyne, a massage therapist who works at Innovation Salon on Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. "If I'm not going to be parking here, I'm not going to be shopping here."

Under the new plan, set to take effect this summer, drivers who park for more than six hours would be charged $9. Parking would cheaper at nearby city garages, so the city stands to make money from Simon's decision. City parking officials did not return phone messages left over three days.

A monthly pass at the city's Seventh Street garage costs $62 for a non-reserved spot and $120 for a reserved spot, and both types of passes are available, according to the city's website. Other city garages have waiting lists for reserved spots, but all have availability to accommodate the daily parkers that soon will no longer have access to unlimited free parking.

"I really think the City of Santa Rosa is behind this. I think they want everyone paying for parking downtown," said Catt Tripoli, owner of Powerhouse Gym on Fifth Street. "We get a lot of complaints about tickets. It just seems like the city is making it as hard as possible in their effort to get revenue."

Judith Espinoza, 42, who runs the juice bar at Club X Fitness, said she almost got a ticket when unloading a big box of bananas from her car in a commercial loading zone, because her car isn't a commercial vehicle. Her customers have complained they were ticketed when they still had time left on the meter, she said.

"They're really after the money, and that's the scary thing, because people don't have money," Espinoza said. "We are all losing money, because people are going and shopping where there is no charge, like Montgomery Village and Coddingtown."

Upstairs in the Plaza at Elegant Nails, manager Francis Le had similar concerns. Because his clients tend to spend an hour or two at the salon, waiting for nails to dry or making it a social occasion with their girlfriends, Le would have preferred three hours of free parking or the option to validate parking for customers.

"Business is slowing down, and I think they will prevent from coming some people who care about the charge," Le said. "We want to submit some suggestions and the opinions from the customers and see what they can do."

Hartsell, the mall representative, declined to state projected revenue for the program, but said it will be expensive to implement.

"Knowing we've structured a program that the majority of shoppers don't have to pay for, it's certainly not a revenue program," Hartsell said. "There's significant up-front costs in terms of the equipment that's needed. The gates, the traffic routing, and the pay stations will have a parking attendant. The revenues are expected to pay for the program."

Nearby, at the Westfield Solano shopping center in Fairfield, parking at the mall is free.

"We try to make shopping at Westfield as accessible as possible, and we really value our patrons here and just want them to feel welcome," said Megan Stagnaro, mall spokeswoman. "That's just an extra layer that at this time we don't feel is necessary to put in place."

Shoup sees it differently. When parking in a city is free, it adds to more congestion on the roads, because drivers circle the blocks looking for the best parking space. And someone who's willing to pay for parking is probably going to leave a better tip at a restaurant, he said.

"Its just appalling in Santa Rosa how these entitled free parkers think there's no other side to the question, other than &‘We want to park free,'" Shoup said. "You didn't get to be a good-looking city by being a bunch of freeloaders."

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