The story of this old York parking garage tells a 50-year tale of change

When the first vehicle entered York’s East Market Street parking garage in February 1969, the driver would have observed an unexceptional cement structure.

Its facade was marked by a lattice piece that amounted to a failed attempt to put a Cadillac grill on a Chevy Corvair and declare it a luxury car.

But that aside, it was built to take care of pressing problems. The suburban shopping centers — the York Mall had just opened in late 1968 — were siphoning retail business from the big three downtown: Bon-Ton, Wiest’s and Bear’s.

So the first life of many for this 53-year-old building was to serve as a symbol of convenience, offering a walk as short as shoppers would find to stores in Springettsbury Township.

There was another reason for the considerable fanfare connected with its opening. This 400-vehicle garage offered safety, and that topic was particularly at the top of the public mind. Rioting had erupted in the racially charged summer of 1968, so the solid concrete parking garage offered a hedge against violence.

As it turned out, the parking garage really never had a chance to deliver on convenience or safety. The second summer of rioting erupted in July as the garage was being celebrated.

Three years later, Tropical Storm Agnes extensively damaged the downtown. The retail and residential flight to the suburbs that had started in the 1960s accelerated, and the Big 3 shut their downtown shops in the next two decades.

A changing downtown

This is not to say that the parking garage was unused or overlooked. It provided parking for the Lafayette Club and as overflow for motorists lodging at the Yorktowne Hotel across the street when the hotel’s parking garage was full.

It received a colorful tattoo when the Murals of York program chose its west side as the site for its widest outdoor panel, the 120-by-24-foot York Fair mural.

But after 2000, something happened in York’s downtown that further challenged the garage: The downtown’s center up and moved a couple of blocks from Continental Square to the north and northwest. High-end restaurants opened along North George, and nearby, the York County Judicial Center and baseball stadium went up.

The Arts and Market District gained energy with its shops and galleries, some of that foot traffic coming from West Philadelphia Street’s Susquehanna Commerce Center. Some businesses in those high-end buildings overlooking the Codorus Creek formerly occupied premium East Market Street space. Further, many offices affiliated with Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff closed after its companies were sold.

Then, the day of private clubs passed, and the Lafayette Club closed. The Yorktowne limped along before closing for renovations in 2016.

So the parking garage shared in the loss of neighborhood energy and motorist and foot traffic in that part of the downtown.

Hotel gains new life

About a decade ago, the garage received a facelift to combat an image described by one city official as “monolithic ugly.” To some degree, the upgrade canceled that description, though the improvements inexplicably did not include a rehab of its deteriorating York Fair mural. It was as if you asked an auto body shop to repair the hood of a wrecked vehicle and leave the damaged side as is.

In recent years, a colorful mural was painted on a neighboring building, across a parking lot from the garage. Its brightness contrasts with its fading York Fair counterpart. Over the years, renovations also took away the old garage’s only design flourish: its under-maintained fishpond.

A few years ago, the old garage hosted a big roof party of county leaders celebrating the illumination of the York County Administrative Center’s facade across the road. The Yorktowne, then undergoing renovations, stood in ghostly darkness as the neighboring courthouse facade lit up.

But this fall, the Yorktowne will glow bright, too, as the 97-year-old landmark will reopen with a coveted Hilton nameplate.

As for the garage, it had only a sad, but revealing story to tell: an opening eclipsed by community violence. A downtown that lost much of its retail base. A business district that deserted it for new stuff: stadium, judicial center and commerce towers. Then its neighbor, the old courthouse, got the love of lighting.

The old parking garage, even with its new façade, could not seem to catch a break.

New life for garage

Until now.

In that $54 million Yorktowne renovation, designers saw goodness in the East Market Street parking garage.

Hotel planners took down the non-original back part of the old hotel, with its structurally deficient parking garage.

They reoriented the hotel so that the space created from the demolitions could be used for a traffic circle, an area known as “The Arrival Plaza.” Motorists will use this area to check in, head to Duke Street and turn left to access the service lane with this destination in mind: the East Market Street parking garage.

This old boxy building with a brand-new life will serve as the main parking area for the newly restored Yorktowne. After parking, patrons can walk across Market and enter the north end of the Yorktowne with that familiar marquee and through its iconic revolving door.

The parking garage will now serve as the leadoff hitter for the Yorktowne, again hitting in the cleanup position in York’s downtown. How could a downtown Hilton operate without nearby parking?

Interestingly, this activity comes a decade after the suburban stores that drew the retail life from the downtown were de-malled or made into power centers in a quest to keep shoppers. Meanwhile, online commerce is siphoning business from these shopping centers.

The parking garage has survived those downtown retailers and could outlast their successors, the beleaguered suburban stores with their vaunted parking.

Downtown gets energy boost

The Yorktowne is expected to bring life and lights back to that part of town, and it has company. The Lafayette Club is now York College’s Center for Community Engagement, and Martin Library just went through a multimillion-dollar renovation. Royal Square’s shops and galleries can be seen from The Arrival Plaza.

A Yorktowne official says the back traffic circle will create a “grand sense of arrival” to the restored hotel, with its Tapestry Collection by Hilton designation.

That’s true.

And that Arrival Plaza is offering something else.

New promise for an old garage.

Upcoming presentations

For those who ask about James McClure’s public presentations, here are three new courses in the OLLI at Penn State York catalog (https://olli.psu.edu/york): “York County’s Growing Diverse People Come from Deep Roots,” Sept. 19; “Iconic Pictures from York County and the Stories They Tell,” Oct. 19; and “When Tropical Storm Agnes’ Wrath Struck York County,” Nov. 14.

Jim McClure is a retired editor of the York Daily Record and has authored or co-authored nine books on York County history. Reach him at jimmcclure21@outlook.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: York, Pa.'s Market Street parking garage tells 50-year tale of change