A parking study commissioned by the Mineola Board of Trustees recommends construction of a 425-space parking garage in the downtown business district to alleviate current parking problems for residents and people who work in the area.
In presenting the study at last Wednesday night’s village board meeting, Gerard Giosa, founder and CEO of Old Bethpage-based Level G Associates, said the parking garage would alleviate “pockets of high demand” for parking around Winthrop Hospital and the Long Island Rail Road station that make it difficult to find parking spaces downtown during peak midday traffic hours.
“It’s very difficult to find parking in the central business district between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.,” Giosa told the trustees.
He said parking spaces in the village’s central business district are 90 percent occupied during those hours, which he said means there are virtually no parking spaces available.
The study recommends construction of a five-story parking garage on Lot 5 at the corner of First Street and 3rd Avenue. Giosa said the cost of building the garage would be between $20,000 and $25,000 per parking space, which translates to at least $8.5 million for the project.
“That could go a long way toward pulling those cars off the streets and into the parking garage,” Giosa said. “It really adds a lot of flexibility for people looking for parking in that area.”
He said a private company could build the parking garage at a lower cost, suggesting the prospect of the village striking a partnership with a private developer to construct the parking facility and split the revenues.
“The parking garage, while not being completely self-sustaining, will be almost so,” Giosa said.
He estimated that construction of the parking garage would take 10 or 11 months and the cost could be financed over 20 or 30 years.
Village officials said a parking garage formerly occupied the Lot 5 location but was torn down several years ago because the structure had deteriorated. Commenting on the prospective new parking garage after the meeting, Mayor Scott Strauss said, “We knew there was a need for it. We just have to figure out how to finance it.”
The Level G study also recommended restructuring parking time limits and fees in the downtown business district, including providing “guaranteed” commuter parking spaces and increasing on-street metered parking fees to 75 cents or $1 per hour to encourage off-street parking and reduce “meter feeding” by downtown employees.
The Level G study further recommends restructuring parking fees at 94 12-hour meters between 8th Avenue and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority parking deck south of the LIRR tracks to boost usage. Restoration of 34 metered parking spaces along Second and Third streets downtown is also recommended by the study, as is implementing pay by smartphone options for on-street and off-street parking downtown and in other areas of the village.
In response to a question from Deputy Mayor Paul Pereira about fees for “guaranteed” commuter parking, Giosa said municipalities typically charge 50 or 75 cents per hour, adding that some municipalities also restrict parking from 3 to 5 a.m. to discourage people from using the facilities to permanently park their cars there.
In the central village area along Jericho Turnpike and Mineola Boulevard, the study recommends adoption of new valet parking standards by the restaurants on both roads to improve safety and traffic flow.
The parking study—the first one the village has ever done—was commissioned for $15,000 last December to render a comprehensive overview of village parking to eliminate existing problems. After the presentation, Strauss said the village trustees would “digest and evaluate the report” to determine what recommendations they would adopt.
The full parking study is available on the Village of Mineola website at www.mineola-ny.gov.
