'Parking War' simmers over Old Town plan

Apr. 21—As Petula Clark sings about it, downtown is a place where "You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares."

If, of course, you can get a parking spot.

As anyone who has been to San Francisco, Chicago or even Phoenix will tell you, parking in a downtown area is often quite a challenge.

The same goes in the West's Most Western Town, but with an only-in-Scottsdale spin.

A Civil War of sorts — or, at the least, Parking War — is simmering here, with businesses in the southeast/Historic Old Town quadrant facing off against those in the northeast/Entertainment District quadrant.

Scottsdale uses "downtown" and "Old Town" interchangeably, with the core business area sectioned into four quadrants and multiple districts.

The city is fueling the dispute, with two options to add downtown parking presented at the Tuesday, April 16, City Council meeting.

City Manager Jim Thompson and Public Works Director Dan Worth co-hosted "Downtown Parking Update" — a study session with no final decisions or votes.

Even so, Mayor David Ortega verbally torched a two-story Historic Old Town option and Councilwoman Tammy Caputi touted the northeast option.

The roots of the war were planted in 2019, when voters approved "Project 63 — Build Parking Structures in Old Town Scottsdale" as part of a wide-ranging bond package.

That gave the city authorization to spend upwards of $112 million for "public parking facilities and improvements."

Of that, $20 million was targeted as "Build parking structures in Old Town Scottsdale."

But, as Worth explained in a Powerpoint presentation "Funding was not made immediately available." It was first ballparked at $4.4 to $5.5 million per year spread over four years.

Since 2020 ... there has been no action other than talk, as City Council discussed and debated where to put the parking structures.

Last year, Worth said the city would fund a new parking study, as the 2015 study was outdated.

Two months ago, Thompson reversed that: no new study, he said.

Explaining his decision at the April 16 meeting, the city manager said a new study would be a waste of money, as parking is what it is and has changed little over the last decade.

Though Worth and Thompson gave City Council the option of coming up with a third alternative, they encouraged one of two options.

Both would come in far above the $21 million of "available bond funding."

Option 1 would need an additional $6.6 million jumpstart — with Option 2 needing an extra $11.3 million tow home.

Both include 57 spaces at the Artisan development, via a development agreement.

And both list First Street and Brown Avenue in Historic Old Town and Stetson Drive and Sixth Avenue in the northeast/Entertainment District.

Option 1 would add one floor to the First and Brown existing "parking corral" lot and construct a two-floor parking structure at Stetson and Sixth.

Option 2 would have the same Stetson and Sixth structure, but add two floors to First and Brown.

Ortega howled against excess height of a parking lot wrecking the Western aesthetic of Historic Old Town.

"It would be such a monstrosity," Ortega said.

"We would be giving up breathing room that Old Town has."

Caputi wants Option 3: "something else." She said the northeast has been ignored while the city pumps money into southeast parking — then doubled down, showing photos she said were taken at the height of Spring Training showing plenty of open parking spaces around Historic Old Town.

Not so, according to an email from the president of the Historic Old Town Scottsdale Merchants Association.

"We have been pushing for additional parking at the corner of Brown Ave./1st Street to add two more additional levels it has been designed to handle when first built," Marilynn Atkinson emailed the council.

"Parking has long been needed as more visitors come (to) the area."

She said building in the northeast quadrant would be backtracking on voters, as the 2019 bond "clearly states south of Indian School Road."

Since then, Atkinson and others noted, the city created more demand for parking in Historic Old Town "with the expansion of festivals being promoted at the Civic Center Plaza."

Bottom line, from the association:

"Our businesses are hurt with the lack of parking."

Atkinson is also on the board of the Coalition of Greater Scottsdale, better known as COGS, which also lobbied City Council on parking, insisting "the parking shortage in the northeast quadrant has been by design, since the city knowingly approved bars, restaurants and hotels without requiring adequate parking over the years."

If the southeast has a general in this de facto battle, it is Bob Pejman, the outspoken gallery owner.

Pejman insisted some are attempting to use ballot language of "the city will continue to explore options" as a "loophole" to dodge the purpose of the measure and "justify including the Entertainment District location.

"However, voters interpreted the 'intent' of the $21 million bond funding to be building extra parking south of Indian School."

Counterfire from the northeast;

Business owner Jon Rosenberg — the unofficial general from the other side of Indian School Road — blasted Pejman and others from the southeast as spreading misrepresentations and inaccuracies.

"The northeast quadrant issue is a daytime issue. This is NOT for the bars," Rosenberg told City Council, in an email and from the podium.

He insisted "95% of the businesses in the quadrant are NOT bars. They are the ones who need support."

Northeast quadrant business owners, Rosenberg stressed, "are the ones who generate a tremendous amount of revenue for our city."

Multiple small business owners in the northeast soldiered ahead, backing up Rosenberg with similar emails to City Council.

Ortega wrapped up the long (one hour and 45 minutes), hotly-debated study session on parking, with no action taken — and no date set for the next battle of the mini-civil war.