Residents and patrons of the South End have been complaining for months about jersey barriers outlining MGM Casino construction, blocking access to the most convenient parking spots in the neighborhood.
Do they have a legitimate beef?
Yes!
Before MGM came to town, there were 110 on-street parking spots in the casino’s footprint between State and Union Streets. Due to construction, the number of spots available has been cut in half, leaving just 53 on-street parking spots.
The Advocate did a parking analysis and found MGM construction has eliminated 57 parking spots in the South End.
“With all the side roads actually being closed, we’ve had to redirect our clients as well as our staff on how to get to our office,” says Alicia Gamelli, a human resources manager at Pellegrini, Seeley, Ryan & Blakesley, P.C. “To be honest with you, a lot of our clients are actually frustrated with not being able to come down and they’re actually avoiding the office altogether. It’s become a nuisance in trying to redirect people and allowing extra time for appointments and such because people are running late.” Gamelli also noted that the practice’s small dedicated parking lot, which is directly across the street from the construction site, has been overflowing with non-client traffic due to the lack of on-street parking options.
On-street parking is the best parking. It’s the closest to businesses, it’s cheap, and you can quickly get in and out of the spot without having to go through any gates.
Jersey barriers and “No Parking” signs have sprung up around the 14-acre project and are likely to stay put until the casino nears opening in September 2018.
People without a place to park have been directed by the city and MGM to the more than 1,700 parking spots in the nearby I-91 North and South garages. The parking is ample, but it’s a block from Main Street and you have to cross busy East Columbus Avenue to leave the facility.
MGM has plans to add on-street parking to the neighborhood, but it’ll be a long time coming.
Once MGM opens, the casino will have created 4,970 parking spaces within its footprint — all but 169 of them will be inside a parking garage.
But for businesses, surviving without accessible parking for the next two years will be difficult. Even those with parking are having trouble.
At the 53-year-old Red Rose Pizzeria, for example, three people work part-time shifts to protect the restaurant’s on-site parking lot from non-patron parkers.
“We can weather the storm,” pizzeria owner Tony Caputo says. “Our accounts are healthy, we don’t have overhead. It’s different because we’ve been doing it for so long.”
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Gambling Commission is being asked to release $2.5 million in community impact funds due to fallout from construction. Among the applications to the Community Mitigation Fund, Caring Health Center is asking for $275,000 to compensate for the difficulty clients are having in making appointments due to a lack of parking and traffic congestion. Center officials say patients have a hard time getting to the clinic because of the casino-project prompted parking shortage.•
Contact Peter Vancini at pvancini@valleyadvocate.com.
