trading 48 apts + 117 parking spaces for an old SoHo garage
starts and fits (“A log about land use and transportation”) had an item on Sunday about the demolition of the garage at Broome & Thompson in SoHo and the plan for a new eight story 48 apartment building. Aaron Donovan’s take is that the exchange of the 188 car garage for a 48 unit apartment building with street retail and 117 parking spaces is a net gain for a more pedestrian-oriented area (though an esthetic loss of the corner medallion of the former garage, pictured in the link).
I guess so.
Not a pedestrian haven to begin with
But this intersection is just east of the Holland Tunnel on a major entry street for tunnel traffic. Evening rush hours are not a very nice time to be a pedestrian at this intersection (or an apartment dweller, I would think).
Donovan suggests that 71 motorists will be “more or less” removed from the road (because of the net loss in parking), but that could take some time. More likely, the near term reaction of people who used to park in that garage is that they drive around and around (and around) more. Then, when the 117 parking spaces are ready, they will return to the intersection like (starlings?) to Capistrano, when the losers who can’t park there start driving around (and around) again.
I guess any reduction in parking spaces should ultimately reduce the number of cars looking for Manhattan parking space – a good thing, undoubtedly — but this cause-and-effect may take a while.
And I wonder what the tunnel traffic will be like when a lane of traffic is taken up with construction equipment. Can you hear the car horns from where you are?
Can’t fit any lofts here?
I have not seen any news about this development before. Assuming the 7,340 sq ft quoted as retail space is the footprint of the building, the 48 apartments on floors 2 through 8 will average just over 1,000 sq ft. Sounds as though that may be too many units in too little space. And not enough space to be “lofts”.
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