Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson and there has been a lot going on at Snyder Plaza, so much that we did a full episode a few months ago. Well, the latest news is is the City Council is considering paid parking in Snyder Plaza. I've heard from many of you, and I know a lot of you have very strong opinions about this news, but the really good news is the city wants to hear your opinions. So, in order to help you make an informed decision, I invited members of the Snyder Plaza Parking Task Force Committee in to come and talk to us today. They're going to share their research, what their findings were and their proposed solutions to the parking problem and, most importantly, how you can share your opinions on this matter with the city council and with the task force committee. So this is something that affects everybody in the community and I wanted you all to be as informed as possible and know all the details so you could make an informed decision. So if you care about the future of Snyder Plaza, you're going to want to listen to this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:08

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Speaker 2: 2:12

Absolutely. Hi, martha, thanks for having us. I am Amy Broad. I am from JD's Chippery. My family has owned JD's in Snyder Plaza for 42 years.

Speaker 3: 2:21

I'm Dallas Cothram. I'm a neighbor and a volunteer on the committee. I serve on a city board for UP and lived almost my entire life in University Park.

Speaker 4: 2:32

And I'm David Urjabian. I'm the chairman of the parking committee. I'm also a longtime property owner and merchant in Snyder Plaza, going back some 45 years.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Well, good, you guys have quite the background. So we've got a big problem going on, which is parking in Snyder Plaza. It's been a thing since the 50s, I understand, and it needs to be solved. You all have been working on this committee for quite some time, put a lot of hours into this to try to solve this problem. Can you give me a little bit of background of what's going on?

Speaker 4: 3:02

I'll start. I think what happened was we started talking to the city council back when the infrastructure project that's going on now in the plaza was going to take place and we said to the city council we need to come out of this project trying to solve the parking issue because if we don't, we're not going to look very smart. So the Mayor Stewart put together and Robbie Corder put together a group of merchants, of property owners, of residents in this committee and we have set about the task of trying to one identify the problem and come up with solutions.

Speaker 3: 3:43

And it's been a problem for a long time. You've had a number of councils that have known it's a problem and maybe made some efforts, but what they've done it's not an enforcement issue. I mean, we really believe you're having to change human behavior and I know, when people say that oh, you're going to paid parking, really that we did a year study of what are all the options to try and figure out how can we change human behavior. And I think the committee really agreed there are three choices with parking it can be free, it can be convenient and it can be able. And for the hundred years of the shopping center the city has prioritized that it's been free. We think being available and convenient is now more important and I think that's what the committee thinks. And I was surprised, maybe, that there was consensus because you had a lot of different groups with different needs, because you had a lot of different groups with different needs and we came up with something and I think it shows how things work in the park cities often.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Well, Amy, I want to hear from you. You're on the corner there. It's either feast or famine with those two parking places that are right next to the store. Tell me what your opinions are on the situation.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Absolutely. I think, as Dallas had commented, this has been a problem going back since the beginning of Snyder Plaza. We in Dallas know that it's becoming more congested. There are more cars, there are more drivers door dashing food, for instance, picking up, dropping off, there are kids on bicycles everywhere. There's a lot of traffic to contend with and people moving on foot, cars moving, and we need to get them in and out of Steiner Plaza quickly, and we've identified the problem that it's just a bottleneck right.

Speaker 2: 5:27

There are not enough parking spaces. A lot of Steiner Plaza is being parked by employees. To have merchant, to have shops in Steiner Plaza, you must have employees to work in them, and people don't realize how many employees it takes to even run a business my size. I have 12 employees at any one time in a small square footage space like that. So if you think about a salon, it might have 50 employees. Now you've got to park 50 employees somewhere.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Where are they parking? They have no place to park, so they're parking in Snyder Plaza. So that then means that if you are someone who wants to come shopping in Snyder Plaza, you now have to find a parking place. Are there any free? Like you said, feast or famine. You are lucky. You're going to have a good day if you do find a parking place. But for these merchants to survive, they need customers to be able to get in the door, and a lot of customers are either elderly and not able to walk that far or, let's say, parents with small children. They're also not able to make a trek very far. So we need to make parking convenient and accessible for all people at all stages of life.

Speaker 3: 6:32

And you see, anytime you go out there, you'll see two or more employees leave a business and go play Frogger and they'll just move their cars and change spots to beat the two-hour rule and that doesn't work. You know long term and you know having the parking enforcement person, that doesn't change behavior, that just punishes people.

Speaker 4: 6:54

I think further also to Dallas and Amy's point is the committee realized that the single problem in the plaza for parking is employee parking, because we know that on any given day they are taking up somewhat close to two-thirds of the parking spaces in the plaza. So our task was to try to come up with a way that we could remove those employees from the plaza, the surface slots of the plaza, and identify places to put them and identify ways that we can do it. We're a little bit of a unique duck in that we don't have a great deal of off-site parking and what off-site parking there is comes with a cost. So that's what we've tried to do is identify the problem, that is, the employee parking, and figure out places for them to go.

Speaker 3: 7:51

You know, I think a lot of people don't realize the City University Park's already subsidizing parking. They're paying for people to be able to park in the garage already, so paid parking is going on. You know, one of the things we did is a study was conducted about the SMU. Students are really parking. You know, some of those law school students are there in the mornings until and they just run the risk of getting a ticket. So you know, if you think that there's not already a high cost of parking, there is.

Speaker 3: 8:22

And I'd argue and I think this is one of the reasons I was on the committee Snyder Plaza is not nearly as good a shopping center as you would think the metrics in the neighborhood would suggest. I mean, it doesn't create the kind of sales tax that it should for the city, and so you know. I mean I think all of us are supportive of paid parking for a various reason, but the City of University Park is already and its citizens are already paying for all that parking and a lot of it's being used by students, people that are not from the City of University Park. So I think that's why everyone on the committee came to decide this will allow people to move to, or force employees to move to, the garage where they can park for a very nominal fee, which is, I think, good for your people, isn't it, amy?

Speaker 1: 9:16

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Speaker 1: 9:48

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Speaker 4: 10:26

Tell me about the whole process and what your observations were the process started with the mayor and Robbie Corder, the city manager, putting together this diverse group of people, a third of which are property owners, a third of which are merchants and a third of which are residents, some of whom also live immediately adjacent to the plaza because they see what's happening in their neighborhoods, with employees parking there.

Speaker 4: 10:56

So the group of us came together and said identifying the problem was pretty easy. Now how do we come up with the solutions to take care of it? We know that there is parking available. There is a garage that is privately owned that's been built at the end of the plaza. The city owns a lot that is being currently used for the staging of the infrastructure project, which will turn into a 52 or 53 car surface lot. There are other avenues. The city owns 160 parking spaces that encircle Burleson Park. Up by the SMU sorority houses there is the SMU Law Library. We looked at all those things and said we have to come up with roughly 300 parking spaces to get the employees out of the plaza. To do that we have to figure out how to pay for it.

Speaker 3: 11:49

And not injure people. You know, tom Thumb was represented on it, smu was on it and we had an elected official in Liz Farley that was on the committee, and so you know the goal was we wanted everybody to have a winning situation. I guess you know, in my mind we're just sort of shifting. Who's paying for it? The taxpayers are paying for it right now and it's not working. I mean, I think that's what we came to by about month four, maybe that you know we have to do something else Because the city's spending what? $23 or $4 million on various improvements to Snyder Plaza, or $4 million on various improvements to Snyder Plaza. I agree with members of the committee, like you said earlier, that we don't want to come out of this and it not be fixed or not have a plan to fix it?

Speaker 1: 12:40

Have the merchants above and beyond the merchants that are on the task force committee have they been looped in? Have you surveyed them? Because it seems like this is probably going to impact them quite a bit.

Speaker 2: 12:49

Absolutely, we have. We've held town halls that everybody was invited to. We are personally all going out to businesses walking down the plaza, speaking to merchants one-to-one to basically talk to them about what our proposed idea is and if they feel it would be as beneficial as we do for them.

Speaker 3: 13:06

Yeah, you know, and good ideas came up where each kind of segment will have, you know, you can get 15 minutes free and then there'll be a couple of spaces in each area that are not part of the paid parking, that are just available and free. So, you know, I think we've tried to be responsive and then we've added that you can do complimentary parking, you know, at a discounted rate. So if people want to validate their customers, they certainly can.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Well, talk to me about the garage, because we all remember when it used to be the UP library and a big vacant lot over there. It took many, many years for it to become the parking garage. Can you give us a little bit of background on the garage?

Speaker 4: 13:48

So when that garage was built the owner was required to build a garage that holds roughly 600 vehicles. On any given day, half or a little less than half of that 600 are being used and within that number the city is paying for 100 for a parking program for employees to already take advantage of. That costs the city and the taxpayers roughly $100,000 a year for that program. So we have space there. We've been negotiating with the owner to try to be able to take advantage of more spaces in there but again, it's privately owned and, unlike other places in the city shopping centers, ours is unique in that we don't have any space outside of the plaza for people to park. Because if we do what we're trying to do and move employees out of the plaza, what we're also trying to do is move them out of that neighborhood that is between Snyder Plaza and Dickens, just to the west of Snyder Plaza, because it's not fair to those residents to have employees just go park their cars all day long.

Speaker 3: 15:07

And it happens, and it happens.

Speaker 2: 15:08

It does happen. It's been happening for 40 years.

Speaker 3: 15:11

I think that's why I was appointed.

Speaker 3: 15:13

I'm in that other side in the neighborhood, on the other side of Dickens, and so you certainly see, at peak times you know Christmas and such that you do have spillover. In fact, at one of the early meetings, when the council was thinking about adopting this, one of the merchants said, when the council was thinking about adopting this, one of the merchants said, oh, we'll just solve the problem by having our employees park in the neighborhood. And I was like I don't think that sounds like a really good solution. Um, I mean that's why highland park village, you know they require and they have one owner, they require their tenants, the you know, to have their people now park off site, nowsite and are shuttled in. So you know, I think Amy's right that you know the world's changed, I mean the cell phone changed, how retail is done. And you look at these aging shopping centers if they don't change and provide more restaurant and more services that people want, they dry up and we certainly don't want this. I think Sire Plaza is really important to the fabric of the neighborhood.

Speaker 1: 16:11

It definitely is. I mean, it's just such a community gathering place and I have so many good memories of taking my kids to the tree lighting and all the stuff that goes on there.

Speaker 1: 16:20

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Speaker 1: 16:52

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Speaker 4: 17:30

It's two things. The building itself is very whatever the right word is less densely occupied than buildings of that typical size. So the people that work in the hilltop building don't use very many parking places. And then the other side of it is parking is free. In Snyder Plaza, parking after the first hour in the Hilltop garage costs to park.

Speaker 4: 18:01

So you're trying to change people's behavior that way, that way, and the idea would be to try to get more people to park in the garage, but more than that, to come up with a plan that allows us to require employees of the plaza that work in the plaza to park in that garage. Because I think Amy would tell you as a merchant I know, as when I was a merchant in there, that the idea of paying for parking we're, we're, we're, would all like to not pay for parking. But I think when you sell it as, look, when you drive into the plaza as a customer and you realize pretty quickly that you're going to be able to park in the block you want to park in without having to circle numerous times to find a parking space that convenient and that availability, as Dallas said earlier, clearly outweighs the minimal cost it's going to take to move the employees out of the plaza.

Speaker 3: 19:05

I mean we know from testimony that people in the public don't come to Snyder Plaza. I mean very commonly, people know, oh, I don't go there at lunch anymore. Okay, that is not good. I mean Douglas closed and she was a member of our committee and one of the key factors was lack of parking. I mean one thing that benefits the employees will know where they park every time. They will know that they have to arrive early and I'm working professionally on the village and those employees now many of them, they're used to making that shuttle ride. They'll do the same thing here is they will get used to parking in the garage and I think we're going to see an improvement in. You know you're spending your time circling. You know merchants or people are spending time to let their employees leave their building to go and play Frogger.

Speaker 2: 19:58

And Dallas. I'll second that by saying that my employees actually embrace the parking program that the city has offered them because they know they can be on time to work. They have a guaranteed parking space so they know how long it takes to get to work. They can pull straight into the garage to park off-site, they can walk across and they can be to work on time. But equally so, I feel like what David said, that people coming to Snyder Plaza will definitely not mind the minimal cost to park when they can find a spot right in front of the business they'd like to shop in. Some people have constraints, they can't walk that far. We need to make it easy for people to access the business they want to shop in.

Speaker 3: 20:38

And you know, look, we're all volunteers on this and you know, if council deems it a good idea to do this, it can be changed annually. Like we, since we really kind of concluded a lot of our meetings. Somebody had the suggestion of you should do like the UP pool and have an annual pass. The committee thought that's a great idea, you know, and there's been a discussion about doing it where seniors have it maybe at a lesser rate than other citizens, and so I think the committee and I hope council will be very flexible on what does this look like and how can it work for everybody. And then obviously the council is going to get decided at the end of where the money goes.

Speaker 3: 21:22

The committee recommended it stay kind of in Snyder Plaza for improvements there. If the will of the council is as it goes to other places, then that's what their role as leaders of the community is. But we thought it's staying in that area for public art or additional security or lighting or any of those kind of programs. There would be a standing, what we sort of called a parking authority, that would comprise the same as this group merchants, owners, citizens because those are all the people that use this and it really requires working together. I mean, I hope we want more people to participate in the process because I think they'll see this is a hard problem that has defied 100 years. You've got a group of people now that are at least willing to try and figure out a way forward.

Speaker 1: 22:16

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Speaker 1: 22:43

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Speaker 4: 23:22

Well, Martha, the specifics are once we identified the problems which we've already talked about, what we came up with is to hire one, a parking management company, to take over the parking in Snyder Plaza from the City of University Park and, along with that, we would charge people $3 an hour to park when they come to the plaza. Having said that, if somebody comes to the plaza for 15 minutes or less, that parking would be free. We've also identified ways to help the merchants in that they will be able to buy reduced parking to use as validations for their customers. Think about it, helps pay for the program too, and enforce the parking that way where, if by charging for parking, that gives us the ability to get the employees out of the parking lot, it gives the customer a chance to park wherever they want, whenever they want to park, and it pays for the committee to put the employees in places we've identified, like the Hilltop Garage, other places that we can come up with, that again gets them out of the plaza.

Speaker 2: 24:47

That's great. I think you explained that really well. I will say from the merchant side, that will give me a merchant the ability to say to any employee I have you'll pay a small annual fee to be able to get a sticker to park in the Hilltop Garage. That will be convenient and safe parking for my employees so they can be there on time ready to serve and welcome customers to Snyder Plaza.

Speaker 3: 25:07

I think the last thing then, in that the zone between the back of Coobies and Banditos to Dickens, that would become a resident-only parking district, which they have asked for for a long time. So you know, I mean, I think it's important that these are all suggestions and council can change any of those. And the vendor that the city has selected they did a competitive process. They had a number of national firms. They picked someone that is also that company's based in Dallas. They've got a lot of experience and they have a lot of their own technology. I think that's the one thing that it'll all be app-based and there'll be a period where we're bringing this in and people are practicing and that they're not going to be getting tickets at first. They'll be getting, like, hey, some information of you know you need to start doing this. So we don't want this to be punitive, we want it to work. And if people have solutions, you know that we haven't thought of like the annual fee, great, we, you know we just we want it to work for everybody that uses it.

Speaker 1: 26:12

Well, you guys have obviously put a lot of work and thought into this, but it sounds like things are not set in stone and you are open to the public's opinion.

Speaker 2: 26:21

For sure, absolutely. We welcome it with open arms because this program has to work for absolutely everybody, from all ages and stages of life.

Speaker 4: 26:29

I think the overriding fact along that line, Martha, is that this is going to be approved by the city council, and we all know who the city council works for. The city council works for the residents of University Park, and so this is the first time we've all felt like we have everybody on board equally to try to solve this problem. And I've never felt like that before and I've been in Snyder Plaza since 1981 as an employee, as a merchant and as a property owner and I can tell you this is the first time in that whole time I felt like this I dreaded when I was appointed to this, because I didn't think that we would be able to reach consensus and I don't think in a lot of other places you would.

Speaker 3: 27:14

And it's really kind of a testimony to the owners want this to work. They want their merchants to be successful and the merchants want the customers to be happy, I mean, and everybody has decided you know. I mean you can have a compromise where everyone is a little unhappy or everyone's happy so far at least on the committee level and most of the people we talk to, everyone is pretty happy about this equally, and I hope it'll stay that way.

Speaker 1: 27:40

So you are asking the public to give their feedback and it will go to the council. How can people give their feedback to you all?

Speaker 4: 27:48

The feedback is going to come primarily from three ways. One a survey that's being put together now that'll go out to people shortly for them to fill out. Members of our committee are going to, on an individual basis, go through the plaza and talk to merchants about the programs that we're trying to enact, and then the city is also going to have various things in the plaza. There's a cookie day coming up, I believe, on the 19th, a week from Saturday, and things like that for people to ask questions and get informed about it.

Speaker 4: 28:28

What we've learned through all this is that, unless you really get out there with people and try to get their opinion, they're not just going to come give it to you. And we also learned that until you start getting really specific about what you're trying to do, people aren't going to pay attention to you. So that's what we're trying to do, and we're trying to get all this done so that by the end of this year the beginning of 2025, which is not that far away we'll be able to go back to the city council and say here's what we've come up with, here are the views on it and here's our recommendation, and now it's time to vote on this.

Speaker 3: 29:13

I mean, I think that's exactly where we are. We want to come up with something. When all these improvements are made, we also have improvements in parking. No one on the committee came in thinking, man, I want to have paid parking. And I understand that everyone thinks that, oh, I don't want to pay to park, but they want to be able to park conveniently and they want to be able to park close by and this is the only vehicle pun intended that we could find to provide some solution. And in fact I don't think many people really realize the city's already paying and so you know I'm hopeful. I mean, I think this change for the ACC for SMU is going to be great for merchants when you have people from coming to and SMU's playing good football. We want to be prepared for this season and next season where people don't just park there all day. I mean, if they're going to, they're going to pay.

Speaker 1: 30:12

Well, guys, thank you so much for being here today. You have shared some excellent information. I know a lot of people are really going to appreciate hearing from you.

Speaker 4: 30:19

Thanks for having us, absolutely. Thank you, appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 30:22

That's been another episode of the Bubble Lounge. I'm Martha Jackson and I'll see you next time.