Forest Grove, a city of 25,000 about 25 miles west of Portland, has seen steady growth over the past several years. It is home to Pacific University, which combines with the robust mix of retail, restaurant, and entertainment uses to create significant parking demand in its downtown area.
Studio Davis conducted a robust analysis of parking supply, demand, and turnover within the downtown area, and worked with City staff on an outreach program that included four roundtable meetings of a group of identified local stakeholders and two presentations to Forest Grove’s City Council. After the pandemic interrupted the original effort, our team was able to add another round of demand data collection, allowing for an apples-to-apples comparison of operating conditions before and after COVID in addition to providing new data on patterns as the pandemic wanes.
Though a recommendation of new supply was largely expected at the outset of this project, we delivered a parking plan that addressed the issues with a holistic set of measurements designed to activate underutilized parking on the outskirts of downtown without any additional parking. Further, our analysis of impacts and recommended mitigations helped win support for a proposed Festival Street treatment on a key downtown street.