Within the next few weeks, Evanston drivers who circle downtown’s one-way streets searching for tight parallel parking spaces will have some new options – in fact, they’ll have about 1,600 of them.
The Sherman Plaza Self Park garage, located on Benson Avenue between Church and Davis streets, will open by the beginning of June, said Max Rubin, Evanston’s director of facilities management.
The new garage will offer 1,583 spaces on 12 levels and will replace the Sherman Avenue Parking Garage, which shut down two years ago after Evanston’s structural engineers advised that the building should close.
Planning for the retail and condominium complex began more than six years ago. Sherman Plaza’s construction started in September 2004.
Under a “redevelopment agreement” the city paid the developers to build the garage, which the city will own, said James Klutznick, a developer for Sherman Plaza.
CPS Parking Inc. will operate the garage, along with the two other downtown parking facilities, at 1800 Maple Ave. and the intersection of Church Street and Chicago Avenue, Rubin said.
Parking spaces around downtown Evanston were scarce Monday afternoon. Outside CVS, 1711 Sherman Ave., many motorists tried to pull into a space occupied by a motorcycle they had failed to see, only to have to look elsewhere. Competition for a prime spot in front of the pharmacy nearly resulted in an accident between a red cargo van and a white sedan.
Kristin Doll, a south Evanston resident who parked her car across from Panera Bread, 1700 Sherman Ave., said she wasn’t aware of the new parking garage.
The Northwestern graduate student said she doesn’t always find spots as good as the one where she had parked her green Mazda.
“It’s impossible to find a space, and I feel very lucky when I do,” Doll said. “And it’s very expensive.”
Rubin said the new garage will offer 303 spaces to residents of the new Sherman Plaza condominium building. The other spaces will be available for monthly rental or for daily use by downtown retail customers.
“There’s always been a demand for space downtown and this is going to meet some of that demand,” Rubin said. “It’s built to a high standard on the structural side and it’s going to be there for at least 50 years.”
Klutznick said the first tenants will move into the condominiums in July, and stores will open in August. Of the 253 condominium units, only 13 have not yet been leased, he said.
The retail spaces are about 90 percent filled and will include stores such as home-furnishings franchise Pier 1 Imports, cereal-serving restaurant Cereality, Washington Mutual Bank and upscale clothing stores JoS. A. Bank and Ann Taylor Loft.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers will move across the street from its current location at 1701 Sherman Ave. to a bigger space in Sherman Plaza.
“(The stores) will be 100 percent leased before the end of the year,” Klutznick said.
Reach Matt Presser at [email protected].
