Zoo defends parking

By Steve Clark

The vision of a parking garage at Woodland Park Zoo became more concrete last week when zoo officials, engineers and architects held what will likely be one of the final public comments on the project during an open house.

Despite light attendance, several visitors raised the same concerns that have made building the $18 million, four-floor garage at the zoo controversial. The most common criticism was that the zoo’s mission of conservation is at odds with a project designed to make visiting more convenient by car.

“(The garage) is about driving your car to the zoo. That’s a terrible message for the zoological society to send,” said Irene Wall, president of the Phinney Ridge Community Council and nearby neighbor.

The Woodland Park Zoological Society, which operates the zoo, and the City of Seattle, which provides oversight, both as landlord and principle financier of the garage, contend that the additional parking is needed since more than 90 percent of visitors drive. Currently, there are fewer than 650 parking spots on the zoo grounds, and the garage will more add about 700 more. Zoo officials say that parking demand exceeds supply about 100 days a year.

Jim Bennett, the zoo’s communications director, said convenience was a big part of the garage’s appeal, especially since the zoo’s prime demographic includes parents with small children.

“You don’t think it’s far (from street parking) but it is for people with strollers. That’s our primary audience,” he said.

Mary Rivard, a Fremont resident, was sympathetic to the needs of encumbered parents, but worried about the girth of the box-shaped structure, which has walls about 240 feet long.

“I could see a genuine need but the idea of a 700-car garage sitting there half empty all the time is a bad idea,” she said. “I wish they would be thinking more creatively with Metro (King County Transit).”

In fact, the 2001 management agreement that handed off operational control of the zoo from the city, endorsed construction of the parking garage but instructed the zoological society to “continue to develop an alternative transportation plan in conjunction with King County Metro….”

Bennett said that because bus service near the zoo was so sparse n Metro has only one route that drops off on adjoining sidewalks n that it could only carry a small fraction of the number of people that visit the zoo each day. He said people with small children would avoid bus trips, especially where transfers and long walks were required.

“It’s a real challenge for people to get here with the transit we have now, he said.”

But a King County initiative going before voters this fall, Transit Now, is an attempt to increase bus frequency and route coverage in Seattle. Bennett said zoo officials had not spoken to King County about the initiative.

Esther Bartfeld, another neighbor to the zoo, pointed out that for the city, building the garage was a choice between transportation alternatives.

“The city is coming to the public and looking for funds for transportation improvements while they’re building a garage virtually unused most of the day,” she said.

The financing for the project will be provided by city-issued bonds paid off in part through parking garage revenue. The zoo anticipates garage revenues will cover about 65 percent of the bond’s debt repayment.

Seventy-five percent of the debt not covered by that revenue will be paid off by the city, and the remainder paid off by the zoo. Bennett said that would amount to about $8 million from the city and $3 million from the zoo.

The key assumption in parking garage revenue projections is the number of people willing to pay for the convenience of the garage instead of parking on the street for free. Bartfeld, in a letter to Seattle City Council Member Richard McIver, who chairs the Council’s budget committee, contends that these assumptions are unrealistic and that there wouldn’t be any feasible way to compel people to park in the garage.

Bennett said residential parking zones were an idea that could be used in such a capacity. These zones would allow neighbors to park in an area longer than visitors, based on a permit displayed in vehicles. They are used at the University of Washington to manage parking during football games.

But Bennett said responsibility for implementing such a system did not rest with that zoo; that the city of Seattle and neighbors had to decide whether residential parking zones would be used. Though he didn’t have specific ideas about other solutions for compelling zoo visitors to park in the garage, Bennett said ideas were being explored with the city’s Department of Transportation.

Despite ambiguity in other aspects of the garage, aesthetic considerations were covered in great detail in the open house with a series of renderings from architect David Hewitt. Despite the fundamentally dreary imagery garages evoke, Hewitt’s displays managed to be both lively and minimalist, with distinctive steel beams holding up restrained garage floors that were surrounded by airy walkways, conifers and deciduous trees.

“It’s not simply a monolithic garage and it certainly not gray,” Hewitt said.

Hewitt is no stranger to civically charged projects. Another of his designs, the Landmark Inn, will be in the heart of Ballard’s historic neighborhood preservation between Ballard Avenue Northwest and Leary Avenue Northwest.

“It’s the first and last experience people have. It’s a sensitive addition to the zoo,” Hewitt said about the garage at one point during the open house, having to speak up slightly to be heard above rising voices behind him having a heated discussion about the future of the zoo.

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