Mayor Gary Singh wants to make it hard for you to park downtown.
The reason is simple.
Singh said it would mean more Manteca residents, regardless of where they live in the city, found compelling reasons to go downtown to the point they are willing to walk a bit to spend money at a restaurant or a store.
“We want to create a parking problem downtown,” Singh said Thursday.
The mayor said that is what the city intends to work toward doing with a private sector partnership with the acquisition of IOOF building at Yosemite and Main for $1.2 million in general fund revenue set aside for economic development.
That is in stark contrast to Jacob Naven’s position, his challenger in the Nov. 3 mayor’s race.
Naven believes the money the city will likely end up investing in buying and repurposing the iconic building and an adjoining parking lot would be better off spent on a parking structure.
Naven pointed out city money spent on a parking structure would benefit all downtown businesses as opposed to the money being spent on one business to open in the repurposed IOOF Hall.
That said, the core of Naven’s argument is the city is assuming too much risk.
Naven points to the Old City Hall on Sycamore Avenue downtown where an investor completed a remodel last year for a possible restaurant and offices but is still sitting vacant today.
Besides taking on risk Naven contends should be borne by the private sector and not by using tax dollars collected to provide municipal services, the mayor hopeful notes the city is using its capital to essentially help pick a private sector winner, so to speak, in the drive for dining dollars.
The most likely outcome for the IOOF Hall refurbishing is a dining/bar/entertainment venue of some type.
That philosophy is 180 degrees opposite of the city’s that sees the use of a set aside amount of tax dollars to spur economic development as the best way to generate more taxes to cover public needs as opposed to increasing them.
Which comes first;
the chicken or the egg?
Singh pointed to two successful downtown transformations that critics of Manteca civic leadership often hold up as examples of what the city should be working to create — Livermore and Lodi.
In each case, he noted, those cities took steps like Manteca is doing to acquire iconic, high profile buildings in their downtown to remodel and intentionally repurpose to create more of a draw that other businesses could feed off.
They then addressed the parking problem they created.
And those solutions still haven’t resolved “the parking problem” as more and more people keep wanting to go to downtown Livermore.
Cities that created more parking first without creating the demand for it, have been less successful, according to Singh.
Singh noted if you have places where people want to gather, they will walk a way to get there.
It is why the mayor said creating a “walkable” downtown is a crucial part of the downtown specific plan that will be fashioned in the coming 18 months.
Singh said on the way to whatever is attracting them downtown, people will pass other shops and venues they might want to stop in.
As such, it is a different approach than a traditional commercial area such as a shopping center or a 1960s-era downtown where convenience in terms of quick in and out was essential.
The patrons Manteca downtown is seeking are those willing to spend some time to enjoy a meal and or shop making it more of a leisure activity.
It would be a market niche apart from day-to-day shopping trips and even on-line shopping.
Singh noted Maple on Music as well as street fairs — Watermelon Festival in June and the Pumpkin Fair in October — draw large crowds even though people often have to walk several blocks to reach them.
“Downtown needs to be more than 8 to 5,” Singh said. “It needs to be 24 hours.”
Cost considerations
The city intends to ultimately sell whatever is created in the IOOF Hall to recoup its investment in addition to generating new revenue from sales tax.
Naven’s point is that it is not 100 percent guaranteed outcome.
And while Singh doesn’t dispute Naven noting the city could end up fronting $3 million in the IOOF project, the mayor argues it is a more effective and less costly approach than a parking structure to spur downtown development.
Singh noted in the early planning for the best use of the 8 acres in the 600 block of South Main where the new police station is breaking ground this summer, the city looked at options that would have placed other uses such as multi-story affordable housing on the northern portion of the parcel.
In order to do so, it would have required a 150 to 200 space parking structure for the police.
That parking structure carried an engineer’s estimate of $40 million to build.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
