Connecting Communities through Parking Lot Design
Beyond Parking Lots: Can Better Designed Parking Lots Really Connect Communities?
When you drive into a familiar or well-designed parking lot, you might not really notice it and go about your day as usual. But imagine finishing your errands and walking into an unfamiliar parking lot — you forgot where you parked, cement dividers block easy access between parking aisles, you lug your grocery cart back and forth between aisles only to find that you’ve parked exactly opposite of where you started from. To top it off, the next closest cart return is not even in your vicinity. You won’t forget that parking lot, and you’ll make a note to remember where you parked next time. We may not think about parking lots often, or ever, but those poorly designed parking lots stick out in your mind.
From a planner and designer’s perspective, parking lots create large areas of singular programming in a community that can contain physical and visual barriers if executed poorly. The added steps a pedestrian must take to navigate around and through parking lots can be an unpleasant experience.
Environmental Impacts of a Poorly Designed Parking Lot
By looking underneath the surface, parking lots can have other negative impacts that pedestrians might not notice. Poorly designed parking lots take up space, erase natural landscapes, and create impervious surfaces that prevent stormwater infiltration. Many times, communities must get creative to mitigate these negative impacts. All these changes require costly stormwater infrastructure to collect and treat the stormwater that would have naturally infiltrated on that same site. Although parking lots are essential for a community, they often represent significant areas of under-utilized land.
Appropriately Sized Parking Lots: Community Members’ vs Planners’ Perspectives
When it comes to parking lots, is bigger always better? While some might think so, the answer isn’t so straightforward.
Community members often focus on the traditional function of parking lots — a place to park cars and access services and housing. In that respect, some community members may wish to maximize the amount of available parking and ensure convenient parking is available when needed.
Planners are often more focused on the negative impacts of parking lots. Parking lots can reduce the amount of available land for housing and other active uses, which can contribute to heat island effects in core cities. They can also increase toxic runoff in the stormwater system. Planners and designers may wish to reduce the size of parking lots or to optimize their design to reduce those negative effects.
From the beginning of a project, designers must think critically to help the community ensure the parking lot is appropriately sized for their needs. Beyond the basics, it’s important to break up the amount of parking spaces and bring the scale down to something more manageable.
Mitigating Problems Through Great Parking Lot Design
Planners and designers often consider auxiliary functions of parking lots. How do they affect traffic circulation in the immediate area? How can they help to build a healthy tree canopy and reduce heat island effects? How can parking lots reduce the impervious surfacing, increase the total amount of green space, find creative solutions for adding pedestrian amenities, and better connect to major circulation routes, trails, and transit?
Designers tend to come across a lot of great precedent projects in European countries, and Lance Schuer, Senior Landscape Architect explains, “we try to implement some of those creative solutions to parking lot design in our projects.” Design starts with the scale of the parking lot, grouping parking stalls, choosing paving materials to delineate spaces from drive lanes and pedestrian areas, and so on. Aesthetics can be improved with paving design, planting, perimeter screen fencing, and added amenities for pedestrians. “Parking lot design is usually a give and take between maximizing parking stalls and trying to keep natural systems in place,” said Lance.
Planting plays an important role in and around parking lots as well. Overstory shade trees help keep paved surfaces cool, and annuals, perennials, and shrubs help add visual interest and screening. It’s critical to provide wide areas for planting to ensure better plant health and more space for things like stormwater infiltration through rain gardens or biofiltration chambers.
Parking Lot Case Study: Ames City Hall West Parking Lot Renovation
In Ames, Iowa, the main City Hall parking lot required improvements to continue serving city staff, fleet vehicles, and the public. Instead of simply resurfacing the parking lot, the city re-imagined the space with a newly adopted Post Construction Ordinance, that required development projects to include stormwater best management practices. To achieve this vision, the city leveraged external funding from an Innovative Stormwater Grant through Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) as well as additional support from the State Revolving Fund (SRF) sponsored project funding of the new municipal water treatment facility.
Bolton & Menk collaborated with city staff to incorporate sustainable landscaping into the city hall parking lot, including bioretention cells, native plantings, and permeable pavers. A corresponding maintenance manual was also created to guide both the establishment and ongoing care of these features. Completed in 2018, the project continues to educate residents on stormwater best management practices and low impact landscaping to address water quality in the South Skunk River Watershed.
Beyond Parking Lots
Well-designed parking lots can serve the community beyond just parking cars. They can host farmers’ markets, community gatherings, and events, making them more functional and valuable. These multi-purpose uses encourage consultants and the community to think critically about how parking lots can benefit everyone in various situations. Redesigned parking lots can highlight the interaction between infrastructure and the natural environment, creating healthier and more resilient communities.
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Lance Schuer
As a senior landscape architect at Bolton & Menk, Lance brings a wide range of experience in all phases of design and construction observation for many project types and scales. He began his career in 2006 and has worked extensively with multi-disciplinary teams, being recognized for his ability to manage complex projects in an organized, collaborative manner. Lance believes in working with clients, communities, and stakeholders to facilitate a thoughtful, individualized approach for every project. He brings a high level of craftsmanship to each unique site and is dedicated to creating design solutions that connect people to place while benefiting the public realm.
Peter Crandall
A senior urban designer for Bolton & Menk, Peter began his career in 2009. He provides design expertise, visual communication assistance, and general support for our planning and urban design team. His background in architecture, planning, and urban design with an emphasis on transit-oriented development, public realm design, small area planning, and municipal code development make him an expert and a great addition to any team. Peter‘s drive stems from his love of creating spaces that help communities grow.
Josh Shields
As an assistant group leader, Josh has experience encompasses the entire life cycle of projects— from visioning, design, construction, and consideration of ongoing management needs. His ability to build project consensus through meeting facilitation, public input, and thoughtful design has led to many successful community-backed projects. He remains driven in his pursuit of helping clients develop solutions to complex problems while considering the role of social, natural, and economic systems influencing their communities.
