Rivers Edge Apartments Seek Permitted Spaces in Goecke Parking Deck

If City Council approves the request, 40 to 60 residents of the Rivers Edge apartments at 1 Water St. could have a new place to park: the downtown Goecke Parking Deck.

Permitted parking in the deck is limited to downtown commercial district residents by city regulation. The district starts just west of the apartments, at the beginning of Merrimack Street.

Managers at Rivers Edge have asked for access to the deck to augment the 80 parking spaces in the lot adjacent to the 164-unit apartment building.

Click image for Haverhill City Council agenda.

Council meets beginning at 7 p.m. in the Theodore A. Pelosi City Council Chambers on the second floor of Haverhill City Hall. The meeting is open to the pubic.

The city’s parking management company, LAZ, monitored use of the deck for two days and found that at peak use, fewer than 100 of the lower-level’s 227 metered and permitted parking spaces were used. At times, as few as 54 cars were counted, according to parking consultant John A. Burke.

A count of cars using the How Street parking lot, which contains 33 spaces, shows similar patterns.

“Based on these occupancy counts, both the lower level of the Goecke Parking Deck and the How Street Parking Lot are significantly underutilized,” Burke wrote to Haverhill Public Works Director Michael K. Stankovich. “It is important to recognize that the parking deck is even more underutilized nights and weekends when residential parking needs, such as those at Rivers Edge Apartments, are highest.”

Burke recommended starting by offering 20 paid permits, and reviewing monthly, offering up to 60 permits in all.

He pointed out that Harbor Place has an agreement for 100 permits in the deck for residents, business tenants, faculty, staff and students using the apartments, commercial spaces and UMass Lowell. However, only a portion of those are currently being used.

Developers of a planned 42-unit project at 127 Merrimack St. had reserved 42 parking spaces between the How Street lot and the parking deck, but since that project has been put on hold, the permits are free to be used.

If councilors decide to allow the sale of parking permits, they will be required to declare residents of 1 Water St. to be downtown commercial district dwellers for parking purposes only.

The monthly cost for a permit in the parking deck is $15, with a discount of $30 for a $150 annual permit.

Mayor James J. Fiorentini, in a memo to the City Council, suggested that if the apartment managers’ request is approved the council review the agreement annually.

The council will not make a decision Tuesday, but will schedule a vote in two weeks.

 

One thought on “Rivers Edge Apartments Seek Permitted Spaces in Goecke Parking Deck

  1. Rivers Edge has ALWAYS suffered from a shortage of parking spaces….. Especially so for the businesses that occupy the ground floor of the building… perhaps that’s why there is always commercial space available?? The City of Haverhill should have made provision for sufficient parking spaces when the building was under construction. That’s a lesson for all of the other buildings that seek permission to build in the city.