Albany

You want parking? Oh, this neighborhood will have parking.

Right there on Myrtle Avenue in Albany will be the grandest parking garage the region has ever seen. It'll be eight towering stories of parking glory, enough space for 855 cars. We'll have an entirely new reason to call the neighborhood Park South.

There's just one thing: Such an insanely large garage was never part of the plan.

As you probably know, Park South has been undergoing a transformation. Under the guidelines of a 2006 redevelopment plan, the rundown section of the city has been remade by shiny buildings lining New Scotland Avenue near Albany Medical Center.

As part of the next wave of change, Columbia Development wants to clear two city blocks for 268 apartments, along with offices and stores. The latest version of the proposal calls for nine new buildings — including the controversial parking garage.

How big is it?

It's about double the garage approved by city lawmakers back in 2006, and the Common Council is now being asked to OK the change.

How big is it?

Renderings show it dwarfing nearby buildings. They look like Chihuahuas next to a Great Dane.

More Information Have a story? Contact Churchill 518-454-5700 or cchurchill@timesunion.com. See More Collapse

Columbia, which is partnering on the project with Tri-City Rentals and Albany Med, says it needs the garage to serve the customers, residents and workers who would use the new buildings. The assumption seems to be that the apartments, businesses and offices would all be at maximum capacity at exactly the same time.

Now, it's fair to wonder who, exactly, would use an eight-story garage to visit a store, or what version of hell it would be to lug groceries from the garage to an apartment on the next block.

There's also the question of urban design. The goal of redevelopment in Park South has always been to create a vital, lively, interesting neighborhood, with desirable residential side streets. Massive parking garages don't make for such places. They don't make neighborhoods feel safer and friendlier.

Believe me, I get the need for some parking. But cities in the automobile age face a difficult paradox.

If an urban neighborhood has too much parking, especially surface-level lots, it's a concrete dead zone. Nobody wants to spend time there. People instead choose tighter-knit neighborhoods in which they can easily walk from place to place — and complain that there's not enough parking.

There are examples of each kind of neighborhood within blocks of the proposed mega-garage site.

To the south, between Holland Avenue and Academy Road, is a depressing landscape of surface-level lots. People park, then scurry away.To the northeast is Center Square, along Lark Street. This, I'd argue, is the city's most successful inner district — yet there are no parking garages. Imagine that. It's miraculous.

The Columbia plan would make Park South more like Holland Avenue and less like Center Square. It's just too much parking for a city. It's too much like a suburban office park.

Want a better model? Look to Saratoga Springs, where smaller parking garages are mixed among other uses.

Here's a question: Since the expectation seems to be that nobody in Park South will be walking or taking the bus, won't the traffic caused by the new construction overwhelm the neighborhood's narrow streets?

Columbia Development declined comment. But Joe Nicolla, its president, has publicly said the garage is key to the plan, and that none of the buildings will go forward without it. It's an all-or-nothing threat.

Columbia is also suggesting lenders won't finance the construction without the expanded garage.

That claim is curious, since Columbia didn't include a parking garage as part of the eleven-story complex it has proposed building along Wellington Row on State Street.

Albany's planning department, by the way, has raised concerns about the mega-garage. In a recent memo, it suggested the structure shouldn't be taller than nearby buildings and called for "a more objective analysis of the suggested parking needs," among other recommendations.

That's a nice way of saying that Columbia is exaggerating the need for spaces. That's a nice way of saying that eight stories of concrete are absurd for what has always been a residential side street.

cchurchill@timesunion.com • 518-454-5700 • @chris_churchill