Quote:
Originally posted by paulis
it was mentioned that the Hoop in Beaverton is closing. Same for the Hoop across the river in Vancouver, WA?
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No, and not for The Hoop in Salem,OR either. According to the local paper, once they expanded their services beyond basketball and some ancillary services to the point where they were operating as a health club, their building usage moved up into a different category and that required them to provide a lot more parking spaces. The Beaverton Design Review Board told them they either had to build more parking spaces (which they cannot do because the land just isn't there) or scale back their services. The Beaverton City Council upheld the ruling. The owners of The Hoop felt they could not be profitable without the added services, so they felt they had no choice but to close. It is my understanding that they stopped operating about 2 weeks ago and locked the doors for good on Good Friday.
It seems to me that something could have been worked out, and there could have been some kind of a variance granted. I am on the Planning Commission of a neighboring suburb, Tigard, and we would have explored "shared parking" with adjacent businesses (The Hoop has some and this theory is very common in these situations) or perhaps some other avenue if it had happened in our town. The Hoop also provided teenage dances on Friday nights with great supervision and losing this plus all the other youth activities seems to me to be a greater net loss to the community than worrying about a few parking spaces. I know our regional government (Metro) is very strict about making cities enforce parking rules, but I think they could have been more "creative".
This decision shouldn't affect their other properties.