Finding the best space for business in Roanoke - WSLS 10 NBC in Roanoke/Lynchburg Va

Finding the best space for business in Roanoke

If you are able to snag a parking spot in downtown Roanoke,  you may breath a small sigh of relief.

Uttara Yoga Studio relocated from downtown to Old Southwest in part because of parking.

She says, "A lot of times I would hear from students well I headed into town to come to class today and I circled and couldn't find any place to park."

A parking garage that holds more than eight hundred cars is about a block away, but that didn't matter.

She explains, "For whatever reason people are really resistant to paying for parking."

The former Uttara Yoga Studio location on Kirk avenue is for rent.  Roanoke wants people to locate their businesses downtown, but they also want to make sure that everyone is on the same page with expectations.

Roanoke Assistant City Manager, Brian Townsend explains, "We want to make sure businesses are thinking about when they make a location anywhere in the city.  Is this location going to fit the need of the business... the expectation of where the customer is and where the customer is coming from."

With fifteen hundred people living downtown and another ten to twelve thousand working here, there is a lot of competition for these small pieces of real estate.

Townsend says, "If I'm a consumer business that is not relying on those people already downtown, then the likelihood of my customer finding a convenient parking space in the middle of the business day is less likely."

While there are already plenty of time restrictions on parking to manage demand for spaces, there is research going on to see if paying for street parking would make the issues even more manageable.

Meanwhile, some businesses are finding more success elsewhere inside city limits.

Townsend also says it is important for businesses to look at competing businesses in other parts of the city when considering the best location to open up shop.