BusinessReport.com

There’s plenty of parking to be had for downtown businesses, although it sometimes takes a little ingenuity to find enough spaces.

“We tell employees we will continue to try to get the spots, but if we can’t, then they’ve got to find their own,” says Cheryl Arceneaux, CFO of Chenevert Architects. “We do what we can. People are always calling us if they have spots, or know where there are spots. I think there’s a pretty good network of people who do that.”

Chenevert used to pay for employees’ parking, although these days they just give everyone a bump in pay instead. Company spokeswoman Lynn Holmes reports that so far they’ve been fortunate enough to have enough spaces for employees and clients alike. Other firms agree, although different employers take different approaches to managing that cost.

There are approximately 20,000 people who work downtown, and roughly 22,000 parking spaces, according to the Downtown Development District. District Executive Director Davis Rhorer says the area has a good mix of spots that are paid for monthly [by workers or their employers] and daily [by visitors], although numbers showing the exact ratio aren’t readily available. One of the goals of the original Plan Baton Rouge was to provide more spaces to the public.

“I work the ratios to make sure there’s a nice balance of both daily paid parking and monthly parking on all of our lots,” says John O. Hearin, managing member and co-owner of Baton Rouge Parking, which manages almost 1,000 downtown spaces. Hearin wouldn’t divulge what his ratio is, but did say he plays with the numbers on a monthly basis.

Parking isn’t cheap; downtown businesses report paying anywhere from $45 a month to park on a surface lot to $120 for a spot in a covered garage. Spaces in the state-owned garages that are also open to private companies run $90 a month, although there’s never enough of those to go around. For some firms, covering their employees’ parking is just part of the cost of doing business.

“It’s a significant expense, but it’s something that is a perk. We pay for our employees to park downtown,” says Steve Boutwell, the director of client services for Kean Miller, which has more than 200 employees. The company pays for employees to park in the One American Place parking garage or the St. Joseph’s Cathedral lot, or reimburses them up to $45 a month if they want to park elsewhere, he says.

“Every little bit counts,” Boutwell says. “When you’re adding up a compensation package for an employee, the little things make a big difference.”

For Louisiana Business Inc., parent company of Business Report, 225 and 10/12 magazines, the cost of parking played a small role in the decision to move out of downtown into a building that will have its own parking lot.

When the company moved downtown seven years ago, it covered the cost of parking so employees wouldn’t have to worry about it. Once you give your people a benefit like that, it’s hard to take it away.

A LOT OF PARKING: Downtown businesses report paying anywhere from $45 a month to park on a surface lot such as this one on North Boulevard and Royal Street to $120 for a spot in a covered garage.

“If I make you pay [for parking], then it’s a cut in pay,” Business Report publisher Rolfe McCollister says. “But if I pay for parking, it’s basically a raise across the board. It’s one cost factor you’ve got to include in the mix.” The company will own a share of its new building on Jefferson Highway near Interstate 12 and Drusilla Lane, allowing for greater control over expenses as the company grows, he says.

Mary Trahan, office manager at Phelps Dunbar in City Plaza, says the firm subsidizes staff parking at $54.50 per month for spaces that cost at least $65. Trahan says they’re not paying for the attorneys’ parking at the moment, as the lease is still being negotiated for space in the new parking garage that opened earlier this month for City Plaza and II City Plaza.

Trahan says prospective employees from outside downtown likely take the cost of parking into account, especially when relatively high gas prices are already increasing the cost of commuting. But she feels her firm is pretty competitive in that area. If nothing else, the new garage could simplify her life a bit.

“It has been a problem in the past,” Trahan says. “We probably had as many as 10 lots that we had employees parking in.” With the new garage opening, “I actually released some spots, where before I was always searching for spots.”