Parking is bad in the evolving Quincy downtown, and it will get a lot worse once the Hancock lot closes in early March, leaving the center with only about half the number of public parking spaces it had a few years ago.
QUINCY — Ask anyone in Quincy Center about the parking situation and you get an immediate reaction. Some cringe, others snort or snicker.
Parking is bad in the evolving downtown area, and it will get a lot worse once the Hancock lot closes in early March, leaving the center with only about half the number of public parking spaces it had a few years ago.
"I don't know what we're going to do," Jack Reed, who has worked in Quincy Center for 25 years, said Wednesday as he headed to his parking spot in the Hancock lot. "It's definitely a concern."
Around the corner, Nicole Kiley, who owns The Fat Cat restaurant with her husband, Neil, said business remains good, but they're feeling squeezed in terms of parking. A couple of spots in front of the restaurant on Chestnut Street are gone because the city widened the curbs, and a parking lot across the street made way for the West of Chestnut apartments.
When the Hancock lot closes, it will make it even tougher for restaurant customers to find parking, she said.
"The more construction they do, the harder it's going to be," Kiley said.
The Hancock lot is the large, city-owned surface lot downtown. It is bordered by Hannon Parkway to the south, Hancock Street to the west, Cottage Avenue to the north and Dennis Ryan Parkway to the east. Three major building projects around the parking lot will result in all 492 spots being eliminated in early March. The lot already is down to 275 spaces with construction of the first project over the past few months. The city administration says it is developing a plan to address the parking shortage, but five weeks ahead of the Hancock lot shutdown no details are available.
The downtown area had roughly 1,500 public parking space a couple of years ago, including the Hancock lot, the Ross garage off Granite Street and street parking. Night parking at the Quincy District Court lot, across the street from the Hancock lot and school district administration parking lot on Coddington Street together added nearly 250 spots, for a total of 1,750 at night. That number, including street parking, the Coddington lot and the courthouse lot — where signs now encourage parking rather than discouraging it as they did until recently — now sits at 1,200 for those who want access to downtown.
In March, when the Hancock lot is fully closed, the number of daytime parking spaces will drop to 675 and evening spaces to 925, a 55 percent reduction in daytime parking and 46 percent less nighttime parking that existed back in 2016 before the four-level, 720-space Ross garage was demolished, leaving a 292-space parking lot.
Christopher Walker, spokesman for Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, said the city is completing a parking plan to try to ease the shutdown of the Hancock lot and should be able to make the plan public in the next few weeks. The plan will include directing people to nighttime parking at the 150-space courthouse, the Ross and Coddington lots, which are largely empty at night.
"We have the capacity at night. It's just a question of working to change some behavior," he said.
Walker also said the city plans to make some spaces in the Ross area free but time-limited, the way street parking is. That will ensure space turnover during the day when parking is at its worst. Another idea city officials are tossing around is contracting a valet service.
While the city plans, Edgar Moreno, who owns Acapulcos restaurant at 1388 Hancock St., said lack of parking is already hurting his restaurant.
"It's not good," Moreno, who has owned and operated the Mexican restaurant for 12 years, said.
It hurt business when the city widened sidewalks, eliminating parking spaces in front of the restaurant, he said. New apartments downtown have provided new business from customers who can walk to the restaurant, but they haven't quite offset the loss due to construction and lack of parking, he said.
"There's more people living here, but business is worse," Moreno said.
Brian Sullivan, who owns Sully's on Chestnut Street, said this is the worst stretch the bar has had during 83 years of family ownership.
"This is the worst it's ever been," he said, blaming recent roadwork and loss of downtown parking. "People think we're closed. On Friday nights you could shoot a shotgun down the bar and hit nothing but the walls."
The city is closing the Hancock lot and dealing away parts of it to make way for a massive downtown redevelopment project on what is now city-owned property. Over the next two years, the city, along with two private developers, will replace the parking lot with 295 apartments, a large garage and thousands of square feet of retail space.
In all, three building projects are responsible for the Hancock lot shutdown, including a seven-story mixed-use apartment building by LBC Boston called Nova Residences that is already under construction. On the other side of the lot, diagonally across from The Fat Cat, developer Peter O'Connell plans to build a 15-story, 124-unit apartment building, the tallest building in Quincy. O'Connell has said he expects to start work on the project, called Chestnut Place, this summer, and wrap it up by the end of next summer. O'Connell's project, like the 171-apartment LBC project, will have storefronts on the first floor. The third piece of the Hancock lot development is a 730-space garage that the city plans to build in the middle of the lot along Hannon Parkway. The city would lease about 40 percent of the spaces to the two buildings, with the rest used for paid public parking. That work is expected to begin in the spring.
Tom Aracone, the owner of Craig's Cafe at 1354 Hancock St. said parking complaints are common among customers. Dinnertime is better than lunchtime, as some of the lots begin clearing out at 5 p.m. or so as downtown-area workers head home. He's been telling customers to park at the school administration building at night. It's a four-minute walk across a busy intersection, but the lot is relatively empty at night.
"We've got to find creative ways," Arcane said. "I think it's going to get worse before it gets better."