U of M dean: It’s time for better parking ramp design

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Architect Tom Fisher thinks the design of new parking ramps should take a cue from history and allow for future uses that may not involve storing automobiles.

Fisher, the dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, has studied parking ramp design for years and will speak on the topic at the “Where Do We Park Those Cars?” event at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Dorsey & Whitney’s office, 50 S. Sixth St. in Minneapolis. The conference is sponsored by the Urban Land Institute of Minnesota.

As the Twin Cities area offers more commuting options like light rail transit and bus rapid transit, the need for parking lots may diminish, he said. He also will talk about new parking ramp designs that offer better integration into urban neighborhoods through the addition of retail and eye-catching designs.

Parking ramps of the past were actually designed with the future in mind. When ramps first emerged in the 1920s, “they were designed so they could be turned into warehouses and offices by having flat floors and high ceilings,” Fisher said. “After World War II, the style changed to low ceilings and sloped floors.”

Ramps with sloped floors, common in the Twin Cities, are less adaptable and will likely have to be demolished to make way for any new development, he said, leaving behind a waste of materials and resources.

Changing the designs of ramps to make them more adaptable to a different life in the future isn’t a huge architectural challenge or added expense, Fisher argues. Consider the following recipe: Each floor should be flat and rectangular, accompanied by U-shaped traffic patterns. A single ramp that is not pitched should connect levels.

Then add 11- to 12-foot ceilings and exterior openings for future windows. With this simple approach, the ramp will be ready to go for another round of existence as something other than a parking garage. “This kind of design allows for more uses and does not add more costs,” he said.

Few local examples exist of the transition from ramp to something else. Fisher heard of a building in the Minneapolis Warehouse District that was renovated from parking to offices but he has yet to identify it.

Cuningham Group Architecture Inc. is a partner in a project starting next year that will build 93 apartments onto the east side — and on top — of the 900-space St. Anthony Falls parking ramp at 201 Second Ave. SE in Minneapolis. The apartments will not replace any parking, however.

Cuningham Group founder John Cuningham said the ramp’s pitched floors made it difficult to try to transform parking space into the apartments. Initially, he looked at using part of the sloped ramp as a hallway leading to the units, with tenants having to step down two feet to enter their apartments.

That turned out to be impractical. “Even with flat floors it would have been hard to do something because the ramp’s ceilings are relatively low and people like high ceilings,” Cuningham said.

The Rampton Apartments project has generated a lot of interest and has led Cuningham to wonder if more ramps will someday carry the “wallpaper” of residential units.

In St. Paul, Sherman Associates is transforming the century-old Rayette Building, a former warehouse at 261 E. Fifth St., from a parking garage into apartments.

Project manager Chris Sherman told Finance & Commerce in August that one of the biggest challenges has been removing the ramps that cut through the center of the building to provide access to 300 parking spots. The space will be used for the elevator shaft for the apartment structure, he said.

A good candidate for renovation, Fisher said, is the Grand Place Garage at Victoria Street and Grand Avenue in St. Paul. “You have two floors above retail and the parking is integrated into the building,” he said. “You could eventually put a few floors of retail or housing in the ramp area.”

Fisher also has been making the case for creating new ramps that have more visual interest and combine retail and housing into them. The most publicized of these projects is the visually striking 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, a ramp designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the same Swiss team that designed the Walker Art Center’s addition in Minneapolis.

The seven-story, $65 million ramp offers retail stores on the street and on other select floors. Ceiling heights range from 8 to 34 feet, and the top floors can be rented for events, Fisher said. A photo in Fisher’s presentation shows elegantly dressed patrons sitting at tables covering several parking stalls.

The 1111 Lincoln Road ramp could serve as an inspiration for garages planned for the new Minnesota Vikings stadium and for The Interchange, a $79 million multimodal hub next to Target Field, he said.

Minneapolis-based Ryan Cos. US Inc.’s $400 million plan for development around the Vikings’ stadium calls for a new 1,328-car garage that will likely only be filled to capacity a few game days a year, he said, leaving plenty of time available for creative uses during the off-season.

Fisher adds that most cities demand too much parking for retail and businesses, leaving huge lots for big box stores and urban ramps often less than full. He said developers have told him that all the parking they must provide is expensive and unnecessary.

“Some developers say they like the idea of having some flexibility with the parking requirements because they see them as much more excessive than needed,” he said.

Cuningham added that the issue of parking has come up with many clients because ramps and lots, while costly, also take up a lot of space: An employee needs around 200 square feet to work and her car requires 400 square feet.

Beth Elliott, principal planner for the city of Minneapolis, will also be making a presentation at the Urban Land Institute event. She will present findings from her study on barriers to redeveloping parking lots in Downtown East, which include high land prices that exceed what developers are willing to pay for potential high-rise sites.

The city removed parking requirements in 2009, allowing developers to determine on their own how much parking they will need, Elliott said. But developers have told her that banks still require parking in deals for financing office and residential developments.

Although Elliott likes Fisher’s idea for designing new parking structures to be more adaptable to other uses the city would have trouble attempting to require it in a building code. “I’m not sure we have the legal authority to do that,” she said.

Minneapolis has focused on building more appealing civic ramps that attract different users, she said, pointing to two parking structures in the Mill District. The Guthrie Theater and Mill Quarter ramps are in the middle of blocks to encourage development next to them and to capture customers ranging from theater patrons to nearby residents, she said.

Any future ramps built by the city will likely be at sites where parking can attract a variety of users at all times of day rather than “one-user” structures that might be occupied only during the business day, Elliott said.

Fisher hopes his presentation starts a conversation. “I want to see us make better use of our land and better use of our investments,” he said.