The curtain has finally lifted for the future of Wallingford’s iconic Guild 45th St. Theater — and what a plot twist: the space will be home to a new five-story, 70-unit apartment building. Surprisingly, no parking is to be included in the development of the building, yet some retail/commercial space is expected to end up on street level. The pink cinema is to be demolished in the near future, and hopes of current owner, 2929 Productions, (associated with billionaire Mark Cuban) repurposing the space as a theater are gone with the wind.
The Guild was built in 1921 as Paramount Theater, taking on it’s final moniker in 1950, which led to an additional theater being added two doors down in 1984. The theater closed in 2017, and the iconic “Guild” letters that hung above the marquee can be found next door to its final resting grounds at Octopus Bar.
Tyson Baty is a real estate broker in Wallingford
No parking because there is no easy access to the mid-block property. The transportation folks are not fond of entries from a busy arterial and the only access to the street is a too narrow tongue of land out to Bagley Ave. That will be good only for service trucks and such.
And the Grand Illusion building is up for sale. I really wish I could say I was surprised by any of this (is every movie theater closing now?) but more surprised it took so long. I am grateful that the owners didn’t wait for the remnants to accidentally catch on fire to accelerate their demo permit even further.
While it would be nice to have some retail replace it, using that land for dense, transit-accessible housing is certainly welcome. I’m glad to see a developer taking advantage of the parking minimum exemption for frequent transit.
So 70 units and not a single parking space. I’m sure the anti-car contingency will be thrilled about that. They operate under the delusion that everyone will have no problem riding their bikes in the rain and taking their chances getting a fentanyl contact high on the bus.
But no, studies have shown that roughly 2/3 of them will still opt to own a car. They’ll just park it in someone else’s neighborhood. That’s an externality the developers and new residents will happily pass on to people who live a block or two away from them.
So how about this? Since the city council so enjoys acting as the nanny state, they pass a new rule dictating that anyone who moves into one of these new construction buildings with no on-site parking shall not be allowed to own a car. That way the surrounding blocks won’t have to suffer for someone else’s lifestyle choice. Which, incidentally, might make people less inclined to fight development. And the urbanists should be happy too, since there will be less cars on the road. The new residents shouldn’t have any problem with that since they would know the deal before they sign the lease.
I know, crazy idea, right? But if the city says its serious about climate change and our leaders are raising our taxes and taking other measures to actively discourage car use, maybe it’s time we call their bluff.
Come on, you’ve heard my idea, and you know it’s better. You’re never going to get a law that forbids anyone to own a car, but it would be a fairly simple matter to revise the residential parking zone system to issue permits per lot, rather than per household.
What I’m proposing here would be easier to implement than the present program, and it would be optional per neighborhood, so where there isn’t actually a problem, there need be no RPZ. When it gets to be enough of a problem that the neighborhood goes for an RPZ, most of the residents of a large building won’t be able to get one, and they’ll need to understand that from the start. And as you say, everyone wins – the environment, the urbanist lifestyle, and curb parking for residents and service access.
This business of inadequate on site parking is probably a short lived phenomenon anyway. By 2035, any new car is going to have an electric motor, and a good apartment is going to have parking on site with charging hookup.
Yeah I can see the benefit to your idea. Limit the RPZ decals to a certain number, depending on lot size.
I support the idea that car licenses should only be given to people with home parking space. That includes single-family houses. I am against applying it only to new structures.
Actually, I think it’s not a bad idea to have ALL street parking metered to discourage car ownership.
Seattle density is NOTHING compared to that of Japan. But really, their approach makes a lot of sense. But! You’d have to get this entire damned country to agree to it. If you own a car you can legally own it anywhere.
“You have to have a parking space to purchase a car in Japan. The dealer will ask for proof of a parking lot, which you either own or rent, and it has to be within a 2km radius from where you live.”
https://carfromjapan.com/article/industry-knowledge/owning-a-car-in-japan/
This idea that people in old homes without garages should have more right to use the public street than people in new homes without garages is inequitable on its face and should be a non-starter. We’re all paying the same taxes to maintain these streets and the right to use them should be available on an equal basis to all.
How about we get serious about modernizing our transportation system and start phasing out resident street parking entirely? If you already live in a home (old or new) and rely on street parking we’ll give you a one-time permit that you can renew as long as you like, but anyone moving homes will be expected to park off street going forward. Maybe that’s in a garage on their property, maybe they rent a space from their neighbor, but they’re not getting a permit to use the street overnight.
Within a decade the number of street parkers will be small enough that we can repurpose one of the two parking lanes on most streets to be used for bus or bike lanes instead. We should have been building such things at a much faster rate in recent years, but every time someone proposes one there’s just such an outcry of how there’s no room for such infrastructure given all the cars we “need” to move and store on the streets. Well, let’s take care of that problem then!
I think the one-time permit for existing resident is bad, because that reduces market efficiency. It just adds an incentive for people to hold on to their current houses longer. The main reason why we have way fewer NIMBYs in Wallingford than before is because many of them that supposedly loved this neighborhood so much cashed out and moved away.
One time assistance to build parking space on property maybe.
Yeah it’s not my absolute favorite policy idea in the world, but it has the advantage of gradually reducing the number of people who will fight against reductions in street parking. If you’ve got a more politically palatable plan to get us a connected bike network actually built this decade I’d love to hear it!
As I said, assist/loan/cash to build parking instead of giving people exemption. A lot of houses in the neighborhood had parking space that was designed for cars decades ago that can’t fit the modern bigger cars. If you help people fix that, then you generate permanent parking for single family houses. That gets parked cars off neighborhood streets and make biking easier.
“We’re all paying the same taxes to maintain these streets and the right to use them should be available on an equal basis to all.”
Well, no, actually, we’re not. Someone who just moved into a 200′ microstudio is certainly not paying the same as a family living on a 5000′ lot.
Apartment buildings are absolutely charged property tax at the same rate as single-family residences. The fact that more people are housed per dollar value of apartment building than per dollar value of detached houses is a feature, not a bug.
“That’s an externality the developers and new residents will happily pass on to people who live a block or two away from them.”
Making my off street parking spaces more valuable is actually a positive externality.
Only if you’re looking to sell your home. Meanwhile for those of us who don’t see our home as merely an investment and are just trying to live here, it means parking gets harder and harder. So yes, it’s a negative externality foisted on the neighborhood by developers and their mouthpieces.
Some people use HELOCs and/or have a plan for generational transfer of wealth. YMMV.
Cool. Human beings come first, cars come second. Development should not be hitched to car ownership unless maybe the development is way out in the hinterlands. Own a car and want a guaranteed parking place? Maybe this development isn’t for you.
“Human beings come first, cars come second.”
Are cars sentient beings? Who uses cars? Humans. And most humans, at that.
Some mentioned Japan. In Tokyo, robo-parking garages are a common element (as are ugly at-grade storage lots).
Studies report that sixty percent of folks that live in these buildings will still own cars. That is a LOT of extension cords running across sidewalks for all the EVs that need a place to charge.
Our city leadership has demonstrated absolutely no wisdom or interest at understanding the adverse impacts of their policies, beginning with MHA, which has now TRIPLED land values due to speculative investment money pricing everyone that wants to actually live in a home out of the market.
What!? City hall inadvertently played into the hands of real estate speculators? Well, I’m sure it won’t happen again!