Give Them Parking, And They Will Come
Downtown Oklahoma City's Bricktown is a great place; we love it. We drive through once in a while. We never stop. Why? Parking, lack thereof.
When I was on the air at KTOK, I sometimes decried the lack of parking and endured the wrath of the chamber, the Bricktown brass and Downtown Now folks who seemed unable to understand why I had that attitude when there are parking garages available. I often explained that (1) like most, we are spoiled; we like to park close to the place we're going and at night, we are not going to park four or five blocks away and walk in the shadows and (2) I hate paying for parking, whether it's in a garage or a meter. (Meters are dinosaurs and kill downtown business.)
As time has passed and Bricktown has grown, the parking issue has faded. Until now. Now, I read that The Laughing Fish, longest-running retail outlet in Bricktown, is closing down. The owner, Stephen Wistrand, says the availability of parking has been a huge issue. Owners of Boone's General Store said the same thing earlier this year when they closed their gift shop.
Auctioneer Louis Dakil, handling The Laughing Fish sell-off, said, "The parking situation has really been a detriment to them." Frank Sims, director of the Bricktown Association, lamented the passing of the shop and acknowledged complaints continue about parking in the area.
Wistrand says retail won't thrive in Bricktown unless a developer provides the kind of parking most consumers are used to; convenient and at no cost.
When I was on the air at KTOK, I sometimes decried the lack of parking and endured the wrath of the chamber, the Bricktown brass and Downtown Now folks who seemed unable to understand why I had that attitude when there are parking garages available. I often explained that (1) like most, we are spoiled; we like to park close to the place we're going and at night, we are not going to park four or five blocks away and walk in the shadows and (2) I hate paying for parking, whether it's in a garage or a meter. (Meters are dinosaurs and kill downtown business.)
As time has passed and Bricktown has grown, the parking issue has faded. Until now. Now, I read that The Laughing Fish, longest-running retail outlet in Bricktown, is closing down. The owner, Stephen Wistrand, says the availability of parking has been a huge issue. Owners of Boone's General Store said the same thing earlier this year when they closed their gift shop.
Auctioneer Louis Dakil, handling The Laughing Fish sell-off, said, "The parking situation has really been a detriment to them." Frank Sims, director of the Bricktown Association, lamented the passing of the shop and acknowledged complaints continue about parking in the area.
Wistrand says retail won't thrive in Bricktown unless a developer provides the kind of parking most consumers are used to; convenient and at no cost.
Labels: Bricktown
posted by Mike McCarville @ 8:10 AM
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