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WEST MAIN STREET PARKING OPPORTUNITIES AND ANALYSIS City of Charlottesville Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates Inc. | 14 Loading and Short-term Parking Through discussions with the local business community as well as the field observations, there is a substantial demand for curbside loading and short-term parking. The demand for loading comes primarily from commercial uses along the corridor and occurs during the morning period when deliveries are a key element of business activity. Additionally curbside space is a required aspect for the food and beverage industry that need curbside space for trash collection in the early morning. Parking for customer utilization is also in demand to enable the short-term exchange of goods (i.e., collection or drop-off of goods). The combination of curbside space demands to focus on loading zones in the morning period and the transfer to short-term parking spaces later in the day are elements under consideration in the streetscape plan. OFF-STREET PARKING RESOURCES At present there are approximately 88 public on-street parking spaces on the corridor itself and several more on adjoining and nearby streets. These parking spaces are largely unmarked and unmetered. Turnover is encouraged through a posted two-hour maximum time limit, although it is acknowledged that enforcement is spotty and ineffective at achieving the desired parking availability. In addition to these limited on-street resources, a handful of 2- or 4-hour public parking spaces are available in an off street lot adjacent to the Albermarle Hotel on the 600 block of West Main Street. Despite the limited availability of publically held and maintained parking spaces, there are a vast number of parking spaces within a block of the main corridor – over 5,000 in fact! However, nearly all are privately held and dedicated to a single user. Only 648 spaces are publicly available. The parking inventory identified as West Main Street’s parking supply is: Figure 2 West Main Street Parking Overview West Main Street Parking Overview Total Spaces Publicly Available Location Commercial 1098 280 Amtrak Station Residential 1135 None Hotel 762 None Civic 455 228 55 Carver Recreation Center Old Albermarle Hotel UVA Health System 2059 None Other 293 None On Street Spaces 85 85 Total 5887 648