City Council OKs Granada parking garage

By LESLIE DINABERG
South Coast Beacon

“I personally think this is the last parking structure we’re going to build,” said Dr. Dan Secord, Santa Barbara City Councilman, in approving a $1.3 million contract with Watry Design for the Granada parking garage.

After a false start in 2001, when the construction estimates for a parking garage designed by Wilbur Smith Associates came in $6 million over budget — a project which is currently being litigated — the city is now ready to go back to the drawing board with a new firm.

Watry Principal John Purinton assured the council, “This is the world we live in daily,” citing comparable projects throughout California, including a similar design in Palo Alto.

Both City Administrator James Armstrong and Principal Civil Engineer John Schoof repeatedly assured the council that this project would be monitored carefully and would come in as budgeted.

One possible boon to the budget is the sharing of the parking structure with the county, something that is “actively under discussion,” said Armstrong.

Calling it a conflict with the Circulation Element, which calls for discouraging downtown workers from parking there, it was the issue of sharing parking with the county that caused Councilman Gregg Hart to cast the lone dissent.

“(I think it goes against policy) if we’re now going to take these very expensive parking spaces that were supposed to be for customers and now being considered for employees,” Hart said.