Hexagon was hired through an RFP process to conduct a downtown parking study for the City of San Carlos. San Carlos has an active downtown area into which many restaurants have moved in recent years. City staff believed that the available parking spaces were utilized to such an extent that any future development could not be accommodated. This was confirmed by a parking survey conducted by Hexagon on weekdays and Saturday. The peak time was found to be weekdays around noon, and the public parking lots were over 85% full. Hexagon also conducted an interview survey of all downtown businesses to discover parking usage patterns and attitudes about parking. Among other findings, the survey determined that about 150 downtown employees were utilizing customer parking spaces and moving their cars every two hours to avoid tickets.

The parking study was directed by a citizen’s advisory committee consisting of downtown business owners, property owners, elected officials, and the general public. The committee was very interested in freeing up more customer parking by relocating the employees, but no suitable existing site could be found. It was determined that future development could be accommodated only by planning a parking structure. A suitable site was identified, and a three-level parking structure was designed (one level underground and two levels above). To help the financial feasibility of the parking structure, it was designed to have two levels of housing above.