$4M New Hope Parking Garage: Dozens Ask Questions, Offer Input On Proposal

NEW HOPE, PA — The New Hope Borough Council hosted the first public forum on a proposed four-story parking garage in the borough Wednesday evening. Dozens of residents came to view the current plans and offer comments in one-on-one discussion with consulting and design professionals.

Plans for the proposed $4.5 million parking garage began in December, when New Hope acquired a $1.75 million grant from the state's Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program. New Hope hired THA Consulting to draft an engineering and architecture proposal.

As it stands, the project's scope will accommodate approximately 325 spaces, a possible hospitality floor on the roof, a potential loading and unloading zone on the ground floor, and various utilities in the structure for future uses including a provision for electric car charging.

The parcel is bounded by Stockton Avenue, Hardy Bush Way, and Union Square, accessible from Route 202. The company also provided possible measurements for the structure, saying the building's height would be around 28 feet on the east and south sides, about 38 feet on the west side, and between 28 and 38 feet on the north side. As proposed, the building's elevator tower will extend about 17 feet above the parapet.

The parking garage was proposed in part to address high tourist traffic in New Hope, and THA believes it could cut down on car flow on North Main Street. Street parking in the borough can be difficult to find.

"We lose reservations, we lose tables because it takes people 45 minutes and then they decide to go home and lose the table," Graham Lundeen, the front of house and bar manager at Martine’s RiverHouse Restaurant on Ferry Street, told the Bucks County Courier Times. "And I know that’s true across the board."

However, some residents have expressed concerns that the garage might lead to undesirable crowding or interfere with the town's aesthetic sensibilities.

David Minno, of the Lambertville architecture firm Minno & Wasko, offered possibilities that can make a large industrial structure less of an eyesore.

“We understand that New Hope is a historic town, but garages are not historic structures," he said. "There weren’t parking garages 100 years ago.”

Minno provided reference photos of historic, contemporary, and transitional parking garage designs for residents to consider and comment on.

“We can try to implement some of those ideas in the final design of the structure," he explained.

Historic garage designs can use brick material, arches, and wainscoting; contemporary garages can use an offset screen with a graphic to cover the scaffolding and create a more aesthetically pleasing building; transitional designs use stucco and faux windows to bridge the gap between traditional and modern sensibilities.

One attendee, Joe Balderston, remains skeptical of whether demand for a parking garage merits the project's scale. He brought a poster board with him to the meeting, displaying photos of an existing borough parking lot near the proposed site taken during August and early September weekend afternoons this year.

Balderston claimed the parking lot was empty in each of these photographs. He would prefer that the existing lot be expanded on its west side, or that the garage be one story instead of four.

"It will reduce the cost considerably," he said. "We don't know what the maintenance is going to be on a parking garage."

One resident asked whether or not the parking garage could be turned into a different sort of building, such as apartments, should it go unused. Minno said that possibility hadn't been discussed.

The borough plans to use resident's commentary from the evening to inform the project's direction. More solidified designs will be presented at future municipal meetings, which will include opportunities for public comment.

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