Both the City Council and the Charlottesville Parking Center, or CPC, have rejected one another’s proposals to settle their property dispute over the Water Street Garage.
The City recently offered to purchase the spaces in the garage which are owned by CPC — but the two parties disagree on the exact value of those spots.
City Attorney Craig Brown said while the City has not made the decision to pursue eminent domain yet, an appraiser was hired to determine the fair market value of parking units owned by CPC in the possibility that eminent domain is used.
The City has already proposed $2.8 million for the purchase of CPC’s parking spots.
“If [CPC] says no, we cannot voluntarily acquire the property,” Brown said. “We go to City Council and it has to decide whether we institute eminent domain proceedings to acquire the property through court.”
CPC has rejected the offer and requested a higher price of $8.9 million to sell. This figure includes costs for office space as well as the parking spots themselves.
CPC President Mark Brown said in a press release that the price proposed by the City violates Virginia law, which requires the greater amount between the appraised value and the tax assessment on the property to be the offer.
Thomas Wolf, an attorney hired by the City to handle this case, said in an email statement that Brown’s judgement was “simply wrong.”
“The statute they refer to relates to when the government ‘institute[s] proceedings to condemn property,’” Wolf said. “No such proceedings have been instituted, nor has the city decided at this point whether it will institute such proceedings.”
The sizable difference between the two prices was due to the different calculations used by the two parties, Brown said.
“Ground level on Water Street are commercial retail spaces or offices. [CPC’s] figure includes the value of those spaces [but] we don’t have any plans to acquire them,” Brown said.
In opposition, CPC General Manager Dave Norris said the higher price requested by CPC was not concerning the ground level commercial spaces.
The City’s offer was regarded as unreasonably low because it did not consider the right value of CPC’s parking units in context of the ground level commercial space, Norris added.
“They just took appraised values of curved city spaces and multiply by 344 units that CPC owns,” Norris said. “But the city’s spaces are worth less than [our] spaces, since their values are negatively impacted by the ground lease.”
Norris said he believed the ideal course of action would be to pursue CPC’s June proposal, which was recently turned down by the City.
“[The] City would sell their parking lots and we agree to have them appraised,” Norris said. “ [The} City would walk away with over $5 million [and] could use that money to build a new parking garage.”
Besides the debate on the price, Norris also complained that the City disregarded CPC’s proposal, which would enable the City to set parking rates, while also allowing CPC to manage the garage for another five years.
“From the City’s position, if we are going to go for a contract as long as five years, we should advertise that contract and seek proposals from other companies,” Brown said.
No matter who would eventually be in charge of the garage, parking rates are likely to be higher.
“We have millions of dollars of updates that need to be made to the garage,” Norris said. “Plus we have over 200 people on the waitlist for the garage, and [when] there is a significant demand for parking, we need to adjust rates accordingly.”
Brown said the City’s plan to increase parking rates was to ensure an adequate supply of affordable parking for the Downtown Mall rather than making profits.
“If the City were to acquire all those spaces, it would not surprise me to see a very nominal, modest increase in the rates.” Brown said.
As for future actions, Brown said the City would prioritize the negotiation of a voluntary deal than the acquisition of the property.
“I am hoping we can get back to sanity and find a solution that is mutually beneficial,” Norris said.
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