The Board of Trustees is considering the purchase of a small parking lot that is along Duryea Avenue, on the west side of Prospect. It's right next to Serenity Day Spa. The lot holds 21 vehicles, one of which is for the handicapped.
Now, with all of the concerns through the years (and, I do mean the YEARS) about the lack of parking in downtown Peoria Heights, you would think this might be a no-brainer to vote in favor of, wouldn't you? Well, I believe that the majority of the Board feels that way, but there is always one who seems to have issues with everything that is attempted to be done around here, you know.
There are a couple of issues that need to be addressed, however. The appraisal obtained by the owner of the parking lot came back at $150,000.00. That sounds like a lot, but I'll get to that shortly. We had an appraisal done by an appraiser of our choosing, and he came back with a figure of roughly $67,500.00. Obviously, a huge difference of opinions regarding the value of that parking lot.
Unfortunately, I feel that the appraisal we obtained is seriously flawed. I tried to impress upon this appraiser that a parking lot in Peoria Heights, with our history of lack of parking, and the growth we've seen over the past several years along Prospect, makes the parking lot a good deal more valuable than a parking lot of the same dimensions, say, right off of upper Main Street in Peoria. My explanation(s) to him made no difference, however. He is pretty much set in his ways, and used a square footage valuation of $7.00/SF. This doesn't quite add up, however.
The appraiser of ours used four comparables (similar type properties to compare to the one being appraised), and came up with four EMPTY lots... not even parking lots already completed! One of the comparables he used was the lot where Heights Flowers used to be, and where the new Larry Herman building now stands. At the time of its sale, it was pea-gravelled and quite a ways off of where one would like to have a parking lot for Prospect... and yet THAT lot sold for $11.20/SF! Here we have a parking lot, already asphalted, already striped, and much much closer to where we need to have a lot at, and our appraiser valued it at $4.20/SF LESS.
It makes no sense. But, let's face the facts. It's pretty much impossible to FIND a comparable parking lot to this one, as no parking lot (that I'm aware of) in Peoria Heights has been up for sale in the relatively recent past. Because of all of these issues, I believe that the only true way to assess the value of the parking lot is how much it would cost to CREATE one in the Heights. I'll let your imaginations run with this one... purchase TWO houses in the Village (near Prospect of course); tear them down; haul the debris away; grade out the land; lay down asphalt; get it striped... start adding it up, and $150,000.00 starts to sound relatively good.
On top of that, the owner of the lot is willing to sell the lot to the Village for $30,000.00 a year, over 5 years (obviously), without ANY interest charged. What this parking lot would do is allow shoppers to use it during the day, without fear of being towed away, and the same for the Heights patrons during the night.
Now... just in case anyone is thinking "Don't you use MY tax money for no doggoned parking lot! They should provide their OWN parking!", I have a couple of facts for you.
Fact #1: For fiscal year 2007-2008 (our last one fully audited at this time), the amount of money that the Village received from property taxes came to $137,261.00. That's right. And, this is out of a budget with $3,136,309.00 in revenue. In short, just over 4% of the money that we receive to do EVERYTHING in the Village comes from property taxes. How many people know that fact? The $137,261.00 won't even pay for the salt we use in the winter, along with running and maintenance of the snowplows.
Fact #2: For the same fiscal year 2007-2008, the amount of money that the Village received from sales tax revenue came to $1,302,275.00! THAT figure is an astounding 42% of our revenues received.
Fact #3: This is a long standing problem, the lack of parking in the Heights. Whether it is 100% real, or the perception is the majority, it doesn't belie the fact that folks have problems finding reasonably close parking, when downtown is busy. And, we're wanting it to get busier.
So, as you can read, it is not only necessary, but absolutely imperative that our business district remains solid and, in fact, can possibly grow in sales. We HAVE to have that sales tax revenue to keep providing the services we provide. A parking lot will invite people who are a bit fearful of parallel parking on the street; and also will ADD to the PUBLIC parking spots available.
That doesn't mean we should become one big shopping mall here. I continue in my belief that the Village will only be as strong as its neighborhoods; and the most important thing for our business district(s) to be solvent is that the neighborhoods around them are safe, and to improve wherever possible. That is why we have invested in the infrastructure of the NEIGHBORHOODS at a much, much higher percentage than the previous administration did. Like I've said before: Peoria Heights requires a balancing act of sorts, as there are so many things here that have to have our attention.
This parking lot is small. It won't have a huge impact; but it is a start. Every community I travel through in Illinois, almost without fail, those that are around the size of the Heights, have public parking lots... even when their downtown areas are merely shadows of ours. It's time we catch up with the times, and take the first step towards solidifying the future of our downtown area...
Let's get some more public parking.
No comments:
Post a Comment