City Selling 10 Parking Lots

Looking for property in the city to develop? The Department of City Development could soon have 10 new options to market to you.

The Department of Public Works determined 10 city-owned parking lots are underutilized and plans to transfer them to DCD to be sold. The Common Council is set to review the transfers later this month.

“[DPW] has reviewed its inventory of parking lots and determined that the following lots are underutilized and are no longer of service to the residents and businesses in the areas where they are located,” says a city report.

The report does not estimate a market value of the properties, but it doesn’t appear that any of the lots will produce a sizable windfall for the city coffers. None are located Downtown and most are mid-block lots in residential areas. Some look more like alleys than parking lots.

“Decommissioned parking lots may be sold and added to city tax rolls and maintenance costs will be saved,” says the report. None of the lots are currently metered. The largest of the lots has 34 parking spaces according to a DPW report. The DPW website says the city has approximately 40 such surface parking lots.

Over the past two decades the city has successfully sold a number of larger Downtown and Lower East Side lots for redevelopment, including properties that now house the City Green Apartments, The Sterling condominiums and Grohmann Tower.

One of the underutilized lots, located at 930 W. Maple St., is part of a cluster of city-owned lots that advocates of saving the former Forest Home Library identified as an alternate site for a new Children’s Hospital health clinic. ICAP Development is proposing to buy and demolish the library building to make space for a new clinic. The Historic Preservation Commission recommended permanent historic designation for the library Monday, but the council still needs to confirm the designation.

The council’s Zoning, Neighborhoods & Development Committee is expected to consider both selling the former library and transferring the parking lots for future sale at its December 8th meeting.

Property List

• 2128 S. 5th Pl.
• 2239 N. 26th St.
• 527 N. 28th St.
• 1849 N. 30th St.
• 1337 N. 32nd St.
• 1805 N. 35th St.
• 930 W. Maple St.
• 1629 W. Hayes Ave.
• 1439 S. 8th St.
• 5221 N. 36th St.

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Related Legislation: File 201061