Parking question (Madison, Washington: apartment, rentals, tenants)

[aaronmichael]

Hello, everyone!

I'm moving up to Madison this August, and I have a question about parking.

I'm going to be living in the downtown isthmus (E. Gorham), and the only free parking around is on the street. I'm going to have a car with me, and while I will use my car enough to want to have it available, I won't need it enough to have it on the street close to my building. Would it be alright (and more importantly, safe), to rent a parking spot about a 10 minute walk away from my apartment and keep it there when I don't need it? I'm going up to Madison to start grad study at UW, so I'll have free access to the bus routes, and it also seems like just about everything I'd need is within walking distance of my apartment. I just don't know if renting a parking spot somewhere other than your apartment building is a common practice in Madison.

I've found a rental company with multiple parking spots available, and I'm also curious to know if anyone has dealt with them before. Here's their website.

Parking Rentals Available For Fall 2011

I'm looking at the spots either on Main St. or Washington St. They're $65 a month, which seems fairly low for parking spots in the downtown area.

Thanks, and any info would be appreciated!
Aaron H.

[7G9C4J2]

Madison Property Management is one of the bigger landlords in the area, so they should know what they're doing. And $65 is certainly a competitive parking rate for downtown; I doubt you'll find anything more affordable than that.

What I'd suggest is that you contact the Tenant Resource Center and see if they can give you any specifics, good or bad, about MPM. The TRC functions mostly as a landlord/tenant intermediary, but in the process, they do figure out which landlords are reputable and which are not, and they are willing to share that information with current or future tenants. A parking spot requires a lease just like an apartment, so it's quite possible that they could give you information about how well MPM handles parking leases. Do call, though, rather than emailing; the TRC is a largely volunteer-run organization, and they are sometimes slow to respond to emailed inquiries.