NORWALK, Conn. – One side effect of a mall in SoNo might be the end of free parking at Matthews Park, General Growth Properties Senior Developer Doug Adams said Wednesday.
“I think at the end of the day Matthews Park needs to charge for parking and maybe to validate museums or whatever needs to be worked out. Because otherwise you will have hundreds of people on a nice day parking there and walking,” Adams said to the Parking Authority as he discussed parking issues in relation to the mall, including the idea that the mall’s parking pricing would not undercut the city’s parking rates.
“If we had below market prices we might pull people there… which we don’t want to do,” Adams said. “We don’t want to under build parking or overprice it.”
Getting the parking right is very important to GGP because it’s the first thing customers will experience, Adams said. The company has a full-time employee whose work is devoted to parking, he said, and because the mall is tentatively planned to open in 2018 – assuming it is ultimately approved – it’s erroneous to make assumptions at this point.
“The technology is changing,” Adams said. “… We are already looking at license plate recognition. You drive right in, it figures out who you are. It actually can figure out if you’re a preferred shopper – somebody can meet you at the door, crazy scary stuff, and apps for your phone and all that type of thing. It may be possible that you don’t have to get a ticket in any way or do anything like that.”
The biggest problem GGP might have is people gaming the system and getting their parking validated at Nordstrom’s without actually buying something there. But in 2018, it might be possible to print something on the receipt from Nordstrom’s that a computer would recognize as the shopper left.
GGP’s mall would have parking rates that are more similar to The Westchester mall than Stamford’s Town Center, he said, because Stamford requires that the mall’s rate be kept low.
Parking at the Stamford mall is 50 cents for three hours and 75 cents for four hours; parking in Westchester is $3 for two to three hours and $5 for three to five hours.
“Our pricing will be, I think, a little flatter than yours,” Adams said. “We won’t give free parking, but there will be some validation for the anchor, if you’re going to buy something. It’s going to be a little more level, but if you’re there for four hours, or whatever the number is, it’s going to go up a little more steeply. We may charge $20 if you’re there all day because we don’t want commuters.”
Adams got a little pushback from Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Tim Sheehan at that point, because the goal for Norwalk is that people who go to the mall would also explore the surrounding community and patronize nearby businesses.
Adams said the goal in the mall industry is that people shouldn’t be in the mall’s garage for more than five hours because then you know they’re doing something else.
Talk then returned to the trolley-ish circulator that’s been talked about. It would likely come around every 10 minutes and be free or nearly free, Adams said. There’s no reason to send it into East Norwalk, but it would go to Mill Hill, he said.
GGP is an owner/developer, Adams said, and is willing to invest in things that will pay back over time because it is in it for the long haul.
Adams said there will be no gate for drivers entering GGP’s garage. They will come “pretty far in” to take a ticket because, “Our problem is getting people off the street.”
Leave a Reply
You must Register or Login to post a comment.