Editorial: Parking garage makes sense for Schaumburg entertainment district

When suburban downtowns blossom into "entertainment districts" with plenty of restaurants and clubs, it can be a lot of fun.

Until the on-street parking dries up, that is.

Take the early days of Naperville's renaissance in the 1990s when motorists would circle and circle and circle the downtown looking for a place to park. Finding something within six blocks of downtown was akin to the discovery of Atlantis.

We know anecdotally that this turned some people off to Naperville. But city leaders wised up and started building parking garages to handle the influx of people and their discretionary income.

Arlington Heights did the same once the downtown business climate there started to change. Today, with restaurants in all directions from the intersection of Campbell Street and Vail Avenue, it's still tough to find parking on the street. But there is a big parking garage within a five-minute stroll of anything downtown.

Such is the challenge of retrofitting historic downtowns to meet the parking needs of more people.

Schaumburg officials have been looking at ways to make hay with the shrinking of the Motorola campus - both to make the Schaumburg Convention Center more attractive to those who book shows and to provide a new concentrated 70-acre entertainment district just to the north of it in a village that's already well established as a good place for restaurants and fun things to do.

Among the topics of discussion are the possibility of building a four- to six-level parking garage that would serve both entities.

Village Manager Brian Townsend is acutely aware that parking is an integral part of the equation.

"If you want to have a convention center, you have to have all the amenities that go with it, and parking is definitely one of them," he said.

A new parking deck, should one be built, also would serve the future entertainment center.

There is some concern that the village would be on the hook for an expensive garage if people didn't show up to use it and, therefore, create tax revenue to pay for it.

Village officials might consider a modest parking fee. Take a look at Rosemont's massive parking garage, which comes with a fee. It isn't keeping the crowds away.

Schaumburg is in the enviable position of having a blank slate and adequate room to provide the infrastructure before the customers show up for dinner. It behooves the village to overlook the minuscule risk here. It's Schaumburg, after all. People will show up.

As Trustee Tom Dailly pointed out regarding the convention center, "If we wait too long, maybe they'll go someplace else."

And wouldn't that be a pity.