2 minute read
Dude, where’s my parking spot?
Problems and potential solutions for Lowest Greenville’s nightlife
Story by Brittany Nunn | Photo by Danny Fulgencio
It’s Friday night and you just passed Belmont driving south on Greenville Avenue. Cars are lined up bumper to bumper, and everywhere you look thousands of people are milling around — walking along the sidewalk with their dates, standing in line for a popsicle with their families, and crowding around tables on the street-side patios eating, drinking and being merry.
Welcome to a typical weekend on Lowest Greenville. Now, try to find a place to park. We’ll wait. It’ll take you some time.
Originally built in the early-1900s, Lowest Greenville wasn’t designed to handle the traffic that has flooded the area since it became a local nightlife mecca. But what to do about parking on the popular street is a matter of debate, with some even questioning whether it’s an issue deserving of discussion.
Solution No. 1: Leave home early
Elias Pope, owner of HG Sply Co., says he would love to see more parking spots around Lowest Greenville. That said, the biggest problem isn’t the lack of parking but that people don’t know how to find it.
Because the parking lots are scattered around the area, often tucked away in the surrounding neighborhoods, just locating a parking lot feels like an Easter egg hunt, especially for people who are unfamiliar with the avenue.
This is the “parking problem” most business owners on Lowest Greenville hear about from their customers — and they do hear about it from their customers.
“‘Parking sucks.’ We’ll hear that more often than not from patrons,” says Matt Tobin, a co-owner of Blind Butcher. “They tell us voluntarily. We don’t have to ask. But they’ll say it with a smile on their faces because they know it’s going to be like that. They knew it before they left their house.”
And that’s the parking problem, says District 14 City Councilman Philip Kingston — not the lack of spaces but the expectation of easily finding one.
“Every now and then I hear someone say, ‘It’s so hard to park there,’ and my response to them is, ‘Have you tried?’ ” Kingston asks. “It’s not hard to park there. It’s really not. You just have to separate yourself from the idea that you’re going to pull up to the front of the restaurant and park right in front of it. That’s not going to happen.”
The business association Lowest Greenville Collective is working on a parking map to post to its website in order to educate neighbors on where parking lots are located and which ones are safe to use.
Kingston believes neighbors should leave their homes with the mindset that they’re going to spend some time sharking the parking lots in search of an empty spot, park wherever that may be, and then walk a couple blocks to their destination.
Solution No. 2: Don’t fear tow trucks (at least not as much)
Even if Lowest Greenville has enough parking for everyone wanting to shop and dine, most lots and spots are marked for designated restaurants and threaten a trip to the tow yard for trespassers.
This adds to the confusion and makes the larger lots, such as the one behind Trader Joe’s, easy targets for drivers who don’t want to spend time looking for a parking space, or who don’t know where the other parking lots are located.
Businesses are beginning to team up to tackle this problem.
“For so long people were worried about parking in the wrong spot and getting towed,” says Elias Pope, the owner of HG Sply Co. “In the last couple years, the land owners have been working together to share parking.”
This new spirit of cooperation has been a welcome relief for establishments like Greenville Avenue Pizza Company (GAPCo), which has a slightly different parking predicament because of its high volume of both pick-up customers and delivery drivers.
“I know we’d have more customers if we had more parking,” says GAPCo owner Sammy Mandell, and it’s helped that the surrounding restaurants share their parking, plus HG Sply Co. allows GAPCo customers to use its valet services, he says.
It’s not a parking free-for-all, however. Trader Joe’s, for example, has begun hiring
