South Wedge (South Wedge Planning Committee)

A historic district in Rochester N.Y., may soon get a new neighbor: a three-and-a-half-story parking garage. Last week the city's planning commission gave approval to Highland Hospital to move forward with the project that will add 325 parking spaces to the hospital.

The South Wedge neighborhood is eligible for the National Register, and residents were preparing a nomination when the hospital announced its plans. The original proposal called for a five-and-half-story structure, as high as the steeple of an adjacent church.

After reviewing public comments, the hospital scaled back the plan and converted some proposed green space into surface parking to make the structure less intrusive.

"There were some concessions," says Katie Comeau of the Landmark Society of Western New York. "It's too bad, but it will be better than it could have been." She adds that because of its impact on a National Register-listed property, the state's historic preservation officer will review the project.

Chris Peterson of the South Avenue Visionary Efforts, a group of neighbors that has lobbied for the hospital to investigate alternatives to the garage, feels that even the scaled-back version is too big to fit in with the neighborhood. Her group is appealing an earlier decision by the zoning commissioner allowing a parking garage in an R-1 zone.

"There are more responsible, less impactful solutions," Peterson says. "It's not a matter of if they don't build a garage, they can't get their parking spaces."

John Turner, a hospital spokesman, says that the group's appeal likely will have no impact on the garage. The hospital is assembling an advisory board with members of the landmarks commission, the South Wedge planning committee, and residents, some of whom have opposed the project, to help with the final design that he hopes will blend with the historic buildings along South Avenue.

"This is not something we're doing to say to the neighbors, 'Hey, we've heard you.' This is something we set out to do from the very beginning," Turner says. "When we're through all this, we expect to design the best-looking parking garage in all of Rochester."

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