The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) owns, leases, and operates a nationwide system of more than 180 health care and regional office facilities dedicated to serving the veterans of U.S. military services.  Providing adequate parking facilities has become a major concern for the VA.

DESMAN, Inc, through Cannon Design, an IDIQAE, was retained by the VA to investigate their current parking criteria and methodologies for determining the required parking spaces for their new and existing facilities.  The Office of Construction & Facilities Management (CFM) wished to create a new design standard for parking facilities to include a new and interactive parking demand model, design criteria which will include metrics matrix and shall address issues of sustainability, physical security, including signage/wayfinding.

The assignment was completed within eight months and had four major tasks/components. Task 1 involved a review of existing VA parking analysis strategies and design criteria.  The CFM had employed a model which calculates parking need by facility and user group based on a combination of building density/type data and population volumes.  That model was nearly 20 years old and did not reflect changing patterns of patient care or trip mode, nor was reflective of the unique physical, environmental, or socio-economic conditions that affect trip mode choices/opportunities in different regions of the country.  Similarly, the parking design guidelines previously employed by CFM were limited and do not address recent efficiencies/technologies in parking design, lighting, and management.  Under Task 2 DESMAN developed new methodologies and tools for determining existing and future parking requirements that are reflective of different health care center characteristics. That demand model was then field-tested on twelve centers that possess a wide range of physical and environmental variables. Task 3 involved the development of a Parking Facilities Design Manual that defined design, construction, and management guidelines to be adopted for all future parking construction. The manual included signage, wayfinding, lighting, landscaping, and parking access control standards.  Finally, Task 4 applied the parking demand model developed under Task 3 to all 180 treatment and administrative centers.  The goal was to sufficiently quantify and prioritize parking needs and mitigation costs and target Federal funds towards those campuses that have the greatest immediate need.

The project was encompassed planning and design experience and expertise in six DESMAN regional office locations (New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, Hartford, and Denver).