By J. Graber | Daily Independent (abridged)
The controversial parking garage proposed for First Street and Brown Avenue took another step forward April 14 when the Scottsdale City Council approved a $3.8 million contract with Chasse Building Team to buy supplies and begin necessary demolition in order to begin building it.
The council voted 5-2 to approve the contract, with Vice Mayor Adam Kwasman and city council members Maryann McAllen, Kathy Littlefield, Barry Graham and Jan Dubauskas voting for it.
The garage will be three stories above ground and have one existing subterranean level and will bring a total of 412 total parking spaces to Old Town — 186 of them will be new.
City Engineer Alison Tymkiw said work will begin in the summer of 2026 and the garage will be open for spring training 2027.
About 75 people attended the meeting, with 11 people speaking against the garage without a current parking study and four people supporting it.
The budget on the project is $20.9 million but Tymkiw said she expects the cost to come in around $18 million.
But even with the cost savings the numbers work out to almost $97,000 per new parking space, and that’s before interest costs of the loan to fund the project are tacked on, which could be as high as $10 million to $11 million, according to City Treasurer Sonia Andrews.
Members of the public as well as Mayor Lisa Borowsky raised concerns about the cost per space when a recent study from UCLA has the average cost per parking space in an above ground structure in Phoenix at just over $25,000. The national average is $52,000 per spot, according to the report.
Tymkiw said building above an existing subterranean level actually drives up the price.
“If we were building this garage, just on the ground and there wasn’t an existing parking lot there now, we would be building those spaces for a very small amount of money,” she said. “So really, you’re not comparing apples to apples. Realistically, the number you would compare would be the ground level plus the other two levels into the $18 million, then you are looking at more (like) $60,000 per space.”
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