If you currently park your car at the garage at 2031 Lombard St., you might want to start looking for another garage posthaste. A few months back, we told you that we were hearing whispers that developers had the property under agreement and that the garage would be closing by the end of the year. But we didn’t have confirmation, nor did we have a clear idea of what type of project was in the works. A reader gave us the heads up though, that the property appeared on the CCRA zoning agenda last week, and this shed some light on the development plan.
According to the agenda, developers made an information only presentation last week for a plan to demolish the existing building and construct a new one with 14 units and 14 parking spaces. The refusals for the project include parking, front setback (0 feet required, 3 feet proposed), open area (30% required, 7% proposed), and height (38′ permitted, 49′ proposed). We weren’t at the community meeting, but we’d have to think that the project received pushback both because of the proposed height of the new building and the fact that its construction would eliminate so many garage parking spaces.
We should note that the parcel is large, roughly 160′ wide by 68′ deep, and that it runs from Lombard all the way to Addison Street. It also happens to be zoned for multi-family use, so if they were so inclined the developers could, by-right, demolish the building and replace it with a 30-unit apartment build with no parking. We’re also pretty sure they could build 9 homes with parking accessed from Addison Street by right. But given the outlandish price the developers are surely paying for this parcel, we can’t say we blame them for going the zoning route to try to maximize their return on investment, or at least minimize the risk from buying this expensive property in such a prime location.
As we said, we suspect that most people that live nearby and don’t have their own parking space would object to any project that eliminates garage parking at this location. But that’s a red herring in this argument, which should really only relate to hardship and how the proposed project compares to by-right alternatives. As we mentioned, we didn’t make it to the community meeting- perhaps someone out there was there and can fill us in on the neighborhood response? As this was an information only meeting, the developers still have to come back to the community for a vote before their ZBA hearing, and we’ll be interested to see whether they change their plans after the initial community meeting.
Stay tuned, folks, this situation could still be fluid. But rest assured, something will get built here and soon. So like we said at the top, if this is your parking garage, you should start looking for a new one asap.