Forming an Opportunity Belief
2. Description of my Belief: Due to the downtown area of Charleston being so small, street parking is extremely limited. There are very few parking garages which all fill up quickly, especially on weekends and holidays. Since becoming more and more popular over the last decade tourists, shoppers and King Street employees often struggle to find parking near the downtown area. This can be especially frustrating for people that drive long distances to visit the city as well as people who work downtown. The solution to alleviate this issue is to build a parking garage just outside of the downtown area (where there is space to build) which offers shuttle services to downtown Charleston.
3-5. Customer identification and interviews:
- Customer #1 - A Starbucks employee who works downtown.
- Interview #1 - This individual is in need of a parking spot near her job at the King Street Starbucks and becomes aware of this need every day that she drives into work. Kim finds herself often circling multiple blocks 3 or 4 times before finding a parking spot and it has caused her to be late to work many times. She has had this need and became aware of it ever since her first shift at Starbucks about 2 years ago. She addresses this need by leaving extra early for work and by getting a roommate to drop her off at work whenever possible. This can be frustrating for Kim as all of her roommates have varying schedules and leaving extra early for work takes up more time out of her day.
- Customer #2 - A student at The College of Charleston that commutes to class.
- Interview #2 - Caitlin has attended CofC in downtown Charleston for two years now and commutes from home, 30 minutes away, every day that she has a class. Because there is a parking garage close to her classes she doesn't experience this need as often as Kim, however when the parking garage if full it becomes an issue and causes her to be late for class. Caitlin has been aware of this need since the first time she experienced a packed out parking garage on her second week of classes, two years ago. To make up for this, Caitlin tries to predict what days she will need to leave early to find parking but sometimes fails to do so and still ends up running late to class often.
- Customer #3 - A business owner that has a shop located on King Street.
- Interview #3 - Ryan is the owner of a business on King Street in downtown Charleston who often has problems finding parking himself but recently realized that his customers could be deterred due to the same issue. On a busy Saturday in Charleston last summer Ryan noticed the streets were packed with people but his store had much less people in it than it normally would on a weekend. The problem was that there was a huge event downtown that everyone was taking up parking spots for and those people weren't there to shop, so his regular customers were unable to make it down to the shop. He suspects that even though he just came to this realization last summer, it may have actually been an issue since the store opened in 2018. Currently he feels that there is nothing he can do to solve this problem himself which leaves him very unsatisfied.
6. Reflection: After conducting my three interviews of people directly affected by the lack of parking in downtown Charleston, I realized that more groups of people were affected by it than I had originally thought. My focus was mostly on locals that had to be downtown for business reasons but after talking with Ryan I understand that people looking to vacation or shop downtown struggle with the same issue. The most surprising thing I learned was that the lack of parking could be affecting the sales of certain shops in the downtown area in a negative way,
7. Summary: I believe that all of my original opportunity still exists after conducting these interviews and that after talking to these three people I have an even stronger reason to believe that my opportunity still exists. I believe that my new opportunity, although in general it did not change, is more accurate and specific to meet the needs of downtown employees, students and business owners. It is important to change your opportunity after customer feedback in order to come up with the proper solution to the issue you are trying to solve.
Thank you for choosing to tackle such an ongoing problem, where the “need” is annoyingly present and felt by pretty much anyone and everyone who has tried driving to a downtown area (not just Charleston). I appreciate your reaching out to the various interest groups of this particular matter. Your prototypical customers of the Starbucks employee and college student reveal that non-resolution of this “need” consequently results in a loss of productivity, while the small-business owner’s take on the matter puts emphasis on a loss of foot-traffic and revenue. As impressed as I was when reading your interviews, I cannot help but wonder what someone with legislative ties to the city would say in regard to this “need.” In terms of improvements, consider (though I know this is a bit involved) reaching out to the city. Questions such as: “What is the future of Charleston?”, “What infrastructure will facilitate that growth?”, or “What ordinances or other obstacles, if any, are inhibiting the first actions towards that growth from happening now?” Regardless, I value the insight that you have collected from Charleston and perhaps you can someday see yourself working for the city to make ensure “needs” like this are resolved.
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