In an effort to satisfy an increasing demand for off-site parking, the New York Botanical Garden is in the final stages of purchasing a site to build a $37 million, 784-car garage on the corner of Webster Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard.

The proposed six-story garage would replace the Atlas Welding building, a block-wide brick building that has been a Webster Avenue mainstay since the 1970s, and an abandoned gas station right next to it.

Officials from the Garden presented the plan at a Community Board 7 Parks Committee meeting on Oct. 7 to mixed reviews.

Parks Committee Chair Barbara Stronczer, who has recently been battling the construction of a Comfort Inn just a few blocks north of the proposed parking garage, says the design for the building is “beautiful.”

A Vertical Garden
According to Garden spokesman Karl Lauby, “This will be a well designed, aesthetically pleasing parking facility, reflecting the design requirements of the Botanical Garden and the design talents of the architects.”

Most notably, the building’s four exterior walls will be covered by “vertical gardens” that will change with the seasons, mirroring the actual Botanical Garden.

“We fully expect this garage to set the design standard for parking garages in the city of New York,” Lauby wrote in an e-mail last week.

Standard-setting beauty aside, there are two pieces of the proposal that Stronczer takes issue with.

For one thing, the plan is to use the parking facility for Botanical Garden patrons only, which won’t benefit anyone else feeling the parking crunch on Webster Avenue, Stronczer says. She pointed out that Fordham University’s new 1,500-car garage that opened on Sept. 9 allows area shoppers to park there, as well as visitors going to the Botanical Garden, Bronx Zoo and the college.

“It should be a pickup for Bedford Park and Webster,” Stronczer said in an interview. “It could be very positive for the merchants there and parking is very scarce.”

‘Should Be for Everybody’
Ana Torres is a waitress across the busy Webster-Bedford Park intersection from Atlas Welding at the Webster Café, a diner that is rarely frequented by Botanical Garden crowds. When told the Garden didn’t plan to open the garage to the community, Torres shook her head.

“It’s not good,” Torres said. “It should be for everybody.”

Webster Café patron Joe Malloy often stops by the restaurant for a quick bite. Malloy, a car owner, says parking in the area is tough, but not more so than other places in the Bronx and certainly not as bad as Manhattan, where he lives.

Malloy said it would be “a great asset” to an establishment like the Webster Café to have easy parking across the street.

On the other hand, Malloy said, pointing at the abandoned gas station next to Atlas, “[the site’s] not being used for anything anyway.”

Malloy’s last point is exactly why the Garden says the facility will benefit the community in ways other than adding convenient parking. “An industrial site containing a commercial welding company and an abandoned gas station will be replaced with a garage built to the high standards of the Botanical Garden,” Lauby wrote in an e-mail.

“Furthermore,” Lauby continued, “by accommodating visitor parking in one structure, the garage will reduce traffic through local streets as Garden visitors search for parking in the neighborhood and reduce on-street parking use by Garden visitors.”

Because plans have not been finalized, the Garden couldn’t comment on any operational aspects of the facility. Atlas didn’t return calls requesting comment.

Exit Issues
The other problem, Stronczer says, is that the design calls for an exit onto Botanical Square South, a one-way (going away from Webster) semi-circle residential street that would be affected by the increased traffic.

“It’s residential, they shouldn’t have to inhale the fumes from the cars,” she said.

Lauby says the design engineers on the project propose turning Botanical Square South into a two-way street. There would then be a left-turn-only exit from the garage that would filter traffic back onto Webster and not disrupt the most heavily-populated section of Botanical Square South.

The proposal in its current form is being reviewed by the City’s Board of Standards and Appeals because it calls for a change in zoning. If all goes according to the Garden’s plan, construction will begin in mid-2008 and be completed in late 2009.

In the meantime, Stronczer thinks they can work out their differences. “It has to be tweaked a little,” Stronczer said. “They need to show a little respect for the community.”