Recently, the parking garage located behind my apartment complex has been closed for renovation. This has caused major difficulties for local businesses and residents. I believe that stores and restaurants located within the Livingston Town Center apartment complex have seen decline in business in recent months due to the scarcity of public parking. This has forced workers and shoppers to park in residential spaces blocking roads and causing disturbance.
In this scenario residence, business owners, and local shoppers are all directly affected. However, I chose to focus on business owners to see how they have been affected and whether they have experienced a decline in customers or any frustrated customers due to parking availability. I have recorded interviews with 3 local business owners and uploaded them to a Soundcloud playlist here:
https://soundcloud.com/zach-schaeffer/sets/forming-an-opportunity-belief
After discussing this issue with multiple owners and managers it is clear that the parking renovations have indeed caused issues for Town Center businesses. The closed garage had limited parking opportunities for employees and store goers alike. This is generally in line with my original hypothesis and I think creating more parking would certainly be considered a legitimate opportunity.
Zach,
ReplyDeleteParking is such a huge problem in Gainesville, and it is important that people like yourself are already noticing this and understanding that it needs to be solved. To hear the owners and managers themselves say that they are losing business is extremely detrimental, especially in a town where stores are bought out and failing over and over again. Like you stated, something needs to be done, and I think a parking garage would be a worthwhile investment for all.
Unfortunately, I could not find the soundcloud playlist. However, living in Miami, I do know all about parking scarcity. Hopefully, the County in Gainesville will accelerate the renovation process of that parking garage. As you said, those local business are suffering because of it and locals will remain frustrated until the project is finished.
ReplyDeleteThis past year was my first year attending the University of Florida as a transfer student. For the sake of the experience, I decided to live in my first year in a dormitory. While my experience wasn’t all that bad, parking was an absolute nightmare! Sometimes, I had to park longer distances from my dorm because all of the parking spots were taken, and I could only park in specific spots on-campus. Considering that you are in off-campus housing with parking struggles, it almost sounds atrocious when it comes to finding parking. I guess when it comes to Gainesville, you really do have two enemies: traffic and parking.
ReplyDeleteHey Zach, parking is definitely a known issue in Gainesville. In addition, it is also an incredibly costly situation to solve. Like you, many other students wish to improve parking conditions on campus and around gainesville. Because it is already such a known a pressing issue with a simple solution, you may want to tackle a different opportunity for the future. Other than that, great post!
ReplyDelete