The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

May I Take Your Car? Valet Carlos Jimenez gets all the information before parking the car of a Willow Glen Billiards and Brew customer. Cars get driven to the Bank of America lot up the street.

Creative parking solutions at brew pub, Willow Street pizza

Valet parking and lot-sharing may ease congestion downtown

By Cecily Barnes

Parking on Lincoln Avenue has finally gotten bad enough that some merchants are taking action.

After receiving complaints from customers who have nowhere to park, and from neighboring merchants who say these customers are actually parking in their lots, Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza and Willow Glen Billiards and Brew have come up with separate, creative solutions to downtown Willow Glen's longtime parking problem.

Beginning the second week in February, Willow Street Pizza's parking lot will connect with the lot behind Blaine's Lighting, providing customers with an additional 16 spots to park their cars. Ken Leake, president of Blaine's Lighting, says he has plenty of parking to share.

"We're a destination store, and we have quite a bit of parking spaces back there, so we're going to do a little sharing with Willow Street," Leake said.

In early January, Willow Glen Billiards and Brew came up with a different solution--a valet parking service Thursday through Saturday nights from 7 p.m. to midnight. Both solutions are meant to convenience customers while keeping patrons out of other businesses' parking lots.

Parking at Willow Street worsened in September when developer Scott Kuschel began construction at the old Willow Glen Beauty College, ending an earlier agreement that allowed restaurant customers access to that lot. Since then, customers have been quickly filling up the restaurant's 16 on-site parking spots and then parking either on Blewett Avenue or in the lots of neighboring businesses.

"We have a lot of people who go to the Baskin-Robbins lot, and all the merchants are calling and saying that our customers are parking in their spaces," said Willow Street manager Tim Littlefield.

"We have signs up, but you can only do so much," he said. "We know that parking has become a hassle for a lot of people, but this will almost double the amount of parking spaces we have right now. Worse-case scenario--the lot will be ready the second week in February."

Willow Glen Business and Professional Association manager Demetri Rizos says he commends the restaurant's efforts and encourages more merchants to work together on sharing parking.

"The solution is not going to come from the city at this time; it's going to come from our members working together," Rizos said. "We have some lots that aren't used during the day, and we have to find a way to use them."

Parking at Billiards and Brew has also been a problem since it opened in July. According to its use permit, the billiards club has only four on-site parking spaces. While there are adequate parking spots for the brew pub's clientele up the street at the Bank of America building, nearby residents and merchants have complained that customers park as close as possible, in neighboring lots and on residential streets.

The valets hired by the brew pub will be parking customers' cars in the B of A lot, but some merchants argue that the valet hours are not the right ones.

"They start their valet parking when it's immaterial to the other businesses," says Dave O'Mara, owner of Aqui Mex-Grill. "I think the valet is the obvious solution, except that the hours must be from 5 o'clock to 8 o'clock, because after 8 o'clock, there's plenty of parking on the street."

Parking on Lincoln Avenue has been a hot topic in Willow Glen since at least 1993, when Le Boulanger came to the Avenue. In 1994, District 6 councilmember Frank Fiscalini's office conducted a parking study and found that property owners didn't think parking was a severe enough problem to make physical changes to the street.

Since then, merchants, residents and WGBPA members have thrown around a host of ideas, from parking meters to consolidating all the lots on the Avenue. None have gained unanimous approval from the community. In October the city of San Jose's Planning Department conducted another parking study, which is still in the works.

"What's starting to happen is we've reached a point where we have to start using the chopped up, difficult parking we've got," Fiscalini aide Joe Guerra said. "Blaine's is a perfect example of that. They're not a high-volume retail store, and now their lot is going to get used."

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