Monday's meeting was the second of four the Penguins have scheduled on the preliminary land development plan for the former Civic Arena site.
Commuters might not find much to cheer about in the Penguins' plans to redevelop the former Civic Arena site.
Many of the 3,200 parking spaces now available to them daily -- and to hockey fans on hockey nights in Pittsburgh -- will be gobbled up as the site is redeveloped.
While that might be good news to critics of the Penguins' redevelopment efforts who feared that the site would become nothing more than a glorified parking lot, it will force many of the commuters who park there now -- about 2,000 a day on average -- to look elsewhere.
"The parking won't be there. They will have to make adjustments to their commuting pattern," said Cynthia Jampole, a principal with Trans Associates, the Penguins' traffic consultant.
Among those who could be out of luck are UPMC Mercy employees. About 800 spaces currently are reserved for them at the former arena site.
The concerns arose during a public meeting Monday at the Power Center at Duquesne University to discuss the Penguins' preliminary land development plan for the site. The team is proposing a mix of housing, offices and commercial development on the 28-acre site in the lower Hill District.
Although the team expects to create about 2,400 new spaces as part of the redevelopment, they will be dedicated for residents or for those who work in office buildings or visit retail or entertainment establishments at the site.
Ms. Jampole said commuters will either have to look for spots Downtown or at fringe locations like the North Shore, take public transit, or carpool.
"It will be a paradigm shift," said Travis Williams, the Penguins' chief operating officer.
The 3,200 spaces won't be lost at once, but over a period of time as the former arena site is redeveloped.
Hockey fans and others who visit the Consol Energy Center for events also will feel the crunch. The Penguins expect to have about 800 to 1,200 spaces available for them for evening or weekend games at the height of the redevelopment, but that's far less than what fans have access to now.
Ms. Jampole said the loss of the game day spaces shouldn't be a big issue. "There are a ton of garages here already. They are Downtown," she said.
Unlike the North Shore, where parking is replaced as parcels are redeveloped, that won't happen at the arena site.
"It's not the North Shore, where automatically a garage pops up after so many parcels are taken down," Mr. Williams said. "It's going to be based on that demand for office and retail as development happens and to support the arena based on what goes away."
That doesn't mean the Penguins don't have concerns about the amount of parking that will be lost. Mr. Williams said the team will be working with the city and Allegheny County to identify solutions, both on site and off site, to support the redevelopment and Consol events.
The good news, Ms. Jampole said, is that with fewer parking spaces available, the traffic congestion that takes place before and after hockey games or other big events at Consol could be less severe than it is now.
Merrill Stabile, president of Alco Parking, which owns and manages lots and garages on the North Shore and Downtown, doesn't believe the loss of the spaces is cause for great alarm.
"I think it's going to be gradual development. It does not occur overnight. They're not going to eliminate any of those any sooner than they have to because the revenue is desirable," he said.
Mr. Stabile said Downtown was able to absorb the loss of surface lots when One Oxford Centre on Grant Street and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center were built years ago.
Commuters, he said, will find spots elsewhere -- either Downtown or at fringe lots -- switch to mass transit, or find other means to adapt.
"It would be disruptive if it happened overnight, but it's not going to happen overnight," he said.
Monday's meeting was the second of four the Penguins have scheduled on the preliminary land development plan, which serves as a blueprint for the 28-acre redevelopment. The next one will he held Oct. 27 at Kaufmann Center in the Hill District.
Mark Belko: mbelko [at] post-gazette.com or 412-263-1262
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