With a few simple changes that could be self-funded, John Fregonese says Baton Rouge officials could make parking in downtown more efficient and profitable with additions such as modern parking meters and a professional firm to manage and market the parking garages.
Fregonese, of Portland-based Fregonese and Associates, told the Metro Council as much in a presentation at its meeting Wednesday evening. At the council’s Jan. 27 meeting, a public hearing and vote will be held on a proposal to allocate $100,000 of parking revenue funds to move forward with implementing the plan.
Fregonese’s proposal expands upon the parking analysis conducted in 2014 by AECOM, a professional engineering company, and outlines an implementation strategy for making the changes.
“I think this is really taking an existing resource that you have, making it more efficient, making it a lot easier for the public to find and use the parking,” Fregonese says.
Baton Rouge has about 1,800 public parking spaces downtown—not counting the 1,000 spaces at the Belle of Baton Rouge casino—and another 2,700 private parking spaces. Of those 1,800 public spaces, 970 are on the street and 540 are metered.
“Your meter system is from the stone age; it’s very old-fashioned,” Fregonese says, adding the city-parish collected just $164,000 from parking meters in 2015 when it could have collected more than $550,000 with better enforcement.
“You’re not collecting what you should be collecting there and there’s a lot of inconvenience with the old-time meters,” says Fregonese, who recommends installing smart meters that allow people to pay using credit cards and can be tracked using smartphones to see where open spaces are located.
Another area where the city-parish could generate more revenue from downtown parking is the 1,350-space River Center parking garages, Fregonese says. Visitors and workers use only about 55% of those spaces. In 2014, the garages brought in $715,000, but cost $737,000 to operate, he notes.
A professional firm hired to manage the garages could brand and market the parking spaces to advertise availability. Fregonese notes that in downtown Portland, digital boards indicate available spots in garages.
Expansion of the east River Center garage is also recommended to add about 800 to 1,200 spots. Fregonese says an engineering firm has told him that the existing ramps could be incorporated into the renovations for about $9 million to $12 million.
The next step, assuming the council approves the contract on Jan. 27, would be to decide placement of the smart street meters. Fregonese says he hopes to have those in place by summer. Everything else he detailed in his presentation, except the River Center garage expansion, could be completed in 2016.
Also at Wednesday’s council meeting, Erika Green and LaMont Cole were chosen to fill the remaining terms of Metro Councilwomen Ronnie Edwards and C. Denise Marcelle, whose seats were vacated when they were sworn into state representative seats on Monday.
Former Councilman Mike Walker and the Rev. Shelton Dixon were also appointed to the BREC Board of Commissioners, and the council deferred on voting on a proposed economic opportunity zone for north Baton Rouge.
The council agreed to hold off for 30 days on voting so maps could be drawn for the proposed zone. The initiative, proposed by councilman and mayoral candidate John Delgado, would provide 10-year property tax abatements to developers and business owners on any improvements within the designated area.
See the presentation Fregonese made to the Metro Council.
—Ryan Broussard
