Letter: Six-story Parking Garage Is Not Right For Elmhurst's Downtown

Why we should not build a 65-foot (six-story) parking garage:

1. There has been no justification given to build the additional parking over what would be produced in a 45-foot (four-story) garage on Addison. According to a city parking analysis in November 2010, we have a sufficient supply for current conditions. Active management of current parking inventory could further optimize its efficiency. The new inventory of a 45-foot garage will accommodate considerable additional downtown development.  


2. It is possible to build too much parking and there are negative consequences to doing so.

3. Although there are economies of scale if more levels are built, reducing the cost per parking space, the overall price tag still goes up with a bigger building.  And the increased cost doesn't end with the original construction: more parking spaces built means more parking spaces to maintain year after year. If we don't need it, we shouldn't build it.

4. A 65-foot building at this location is out of character for the neighborhood.  Many of the surrounding buildings are only one story tall; the tallest immediate neighbor is three stories. Even at 45-feet, this structure, filling the entire lot and possibly more, will be large compared to its neighbors.

5. Although there are three other tall buildings in the city, they are all removed from the city center and all are surrounded by green space; none is built lot-line-to-lot-line.

6. Once one building is built to this height in the downtown core, that will set a precedent for others to follow, setting up an irrevocable change in the character of the town. Perhaps some would like to go in this direction, but converting the downtown like that should not be imposed through the backdoor by starting with the parking garage. You can increase density over time, residential or otherwise, if that's what you want to do, without building everything up to six stories. The Downtown Plan does not envision widespread six-story buildings in general; it definitely does not envision six-story parking garages.

7. Public sentiment at the Zoning Commission public hearing already held was resoundingly against a six-story project at this location; the only support for the excess height came from one businessman. Current letters of support by business organizations, submitted after failure of the initial conditional use and variance application, seem to reflect the views of a small inner circle of leadership, but not necessarily those of the membership at large.

8. The most prominent structure of a city's central core should not be a parking garage.
—Tamara Brenner