When is a parking lot more than just a parking lot?

When considering all the elements that go into developing a successful grocery business, often overlooked are considerations of how we develop our parking lots. Besides their obvious function of accommodating the parking needs of our businesses, should these barren expanses of asphalt say something more about our businesses? And if so, how much should we invest in making them “better”?

I love the fact that I have a parking “problem”. For two months of the year, our store enjoys an average of about 6000 transactions a week, supported by a mere 25 parking spaces. Not surprisingly, Jim Leishman, chief judge for the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocer's Independent Grocer of the Year Awards Program had this to say about my store, “Neil, people had great things to say about your store. They love the produce, they love the meat, they hate your parking.”

Luckily three years ago I was able to purchase the house that is located adjacent to my store. An 1850s stone house, it was small, had been converted into commercial rental units and required continuous maintenance. Given the nature of Westport as a small tourist village located on the Rideau Lakes of Eastern Ontario, the house presented a dilemma. While keeping the home would help maintain the charm of the village, a larger parking lot would better serve the thousands of visitors to the village every summer.

Some of my colleagues suggested that I quietly get the demolition permit and knock the house down without warning, so as to avoid any possible opposition. Others suggested I keep the plans to myself as long as possible. Contrary to these strategies I decided to be open with those from the community who were interested in our plan and offer as much information as needed to help them understand the business realities behind the decision.

In the end my choice to be open has paid off. I shared details of my plan well in advance with the local municipality and spoke personally with each member of our local council. I met with our local historical committee to help them understand the unfortunate economics of the stone house and how keeping it would continue to present an money-losing proposition to anyone who owned it. And most importantly I shared a vision that our parking lot would not simply be an expanse of black asphalt, but would in fact respect the scale and feel of the village streetscape.

In order to accomplish this final point, I made certain elements a must for the engineer designing the new lot. First, we would design the lot to handle all of the water from the property through on-site storage and disbursement. Besides avoiding the cost and permits required to tie into the municipal storm sewer, we would be doing our best to mimic the natural return of rainwater to the water table that would occur if our lot was not paved.

The second area of concern that we chose to address was the esthetics of the lot itself. I instructed the engineer to develop a plan that allowed for low profile hedges to line the street adjacent to our lot, and to include tree plantings where possible to provide some shade and lower temperatures on the lot in the summer. And the third aspect that I asked him to address were the people that would be using the lot. Much of our summer traffic comes from boaters using the municipal docks across the street as well as overflow parking that inevitably end up on the street in front of the store. Our new lot would have to consider people first and how they accessed our store not only by car but by foot as well.

By taking these elements into consideration, and making careful decisions, we are choosing to make our parking lot a positive focal point in the downtown shopping district of our village. As grocers we often take great pride in building beautiful stores that showcase the products we sell in a positive way. Just as important we should consider how our stores fit into the landscape of our cities, towns and villages so that they also contribute positively to the esthetic feel of our communities. With a great vision in place, we're ready to tackle the demolition and construction of our new lot. The only question that remains is whether increasing our parking lot capacity by 80% will suffice!