IL: Study Says CTA Could Sell Some Linden Parking Space for Retail, Residential Development
KATHY ROUTLIFFE ON DEC 23, 2016
SOURCE: MCCLATCHY
Dec. 23--Chicago Transit Authority officials say they are reviewing the findings of a study that says the agency could net at least $2 million -- and ultimately the possibility of a residentially denser, more transit-friendly Wilmette neighborhood -- by selling some of its Purple Line station parking lot property.
The study, by graduate students in the Transit Oriented Development studio program at the University of Illinois at Chicago's Urban Transportation Center, recommends that CTA officials actively seek developers who could build a multi-story retail-residential project near the intersection of 4th Street and Linden Avenue.
Bringing new residents into the area known as Linden Square could revive its currently depressed retail scene by making the business district more attractive to new retail, study authors said. Those new residents could also provide new Purple Line ridership, which could more than make up for riders who might be lost by cutting parking lot size, they said.
The Purple Line has the lowest average weekly ridership of the CTA's seven end-of-line stations, with only 1,125 riders, compared to the Red Line's Howard Station ridership of 7,912, according to the study.
Students estimated that the CTA could sell 40 percent of the parking it has on its 5.4-acre Linden property for between $2.6 million and $3.5 million. It could sell half of its parking area for between $3.3 million and $4.4 million, the study team stated.
Selling either amount of land would still leave the station with enough parking to handle most, if not all, of its needs, the study authors said, because the lots are underused.
The study cited 2014 and 2015 parking data to reach that conclusion. According to the study, average monthly parking didn't exceed 50 percent in 2014, and in 2015 it only exceeded 50 percent between July and September, when ridership peaked during the Chicago Cubs baseball season. That year, monthly parking use was as low as 20 percent in January, according to the study.
Pin-Jung Ho, one of the study's authors, said Dec. 13 that her team was surprised at the seasonal ridership swings they found. Although daily commuters normally comprise about 80 percent of total Purple Line ridership, that changed in the summer, when people headed to Chicago for Cubs games, she said.
Ho's three-person team, which also worked with village officials, estimated the development value of the CTA land at $56 per square foot, compared to the development value of more than $79 per square foot the team estimated for the mixed-use development now underway at 611 Green Bay Road in downtown Wilmette.
The study recommended that any developer interested in a Linden Square project could expect to take roughly nine months to navigate Wilmette's zoning process, including potentially winning permits for a four-story project instead of the three-story limit of the district's current zoning before completing a land purchase. Winning the height bonuses could increase the sale price the CTA could command, study authors said.
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