Preliminary results from a study of Moody Street reveals parking as the top concern for both business owners and customers.
Fourteen Bentley University students spent weeks distributing surveys and talking to restaurant owners, retailers, developers, customers, property owners and a host of others to evaluate the once-thriving downtown area.
Bentley University student Janet Thai said she and her classmates have developed two versions of the survey, one for business owners and one for customers. Thai said 273 surveys from customers of Moody Street were collected, between Oct. 25 and Nov. 7, yet, only 25 out of 100 surveys given to Moody Street businesses have been returned.
The street survey results will be combined with an online survey before the final results are presented to city and state officials. The online survey, at www.moodystreetresearch.org, is open to residents and Moody Street shoppers.
One of the survey questions asked to what degree parking on Moody Street makes it a desirable location. Thai said 100 people surveyed said parking was a negative aspect to the street and 78 said parking was a positive aspect.
"For the most part, people have said positive things except for parking and traffic, where the negative feelings out-striked the positive," Thai said. "The quality of restaurants on Moody Street were ranked the most positive ... a lot of respondents mentioned they wanted a clothing store or some type of shoe store even, or a retailer."
The street survey also indicated many patrons go to one destination when they visit Moody Street.
Thai said many of the few Moody Street businesses owners that returned the surveys so far agree the stretch is a good location.
"A lot of businesses have touched upon the parking issue and they have noted that more parking would be more beneficial to them," she said.
Project coordinator and Bentley University Professor Charles Hadlock said his students come from different fields of study, including political science, business, marketing and finance. He said students were given the choice of writing an individual senior thesis or joining the group study.
The has formed three focus groups to concentrate on different aspects of Moody Street.
Melody Shekari gathered consumer feedback.
"Parking and perceptions of parking, that was on (the surveys) a lot," the Bentley student said."We're just really hoping people take this survey even if they don't go to Moody Street. That's important. We're also trying to find out why people don't come."
Ellen Morris spent her Tuesday nights talking with Moody Street residents.
"A lot of people talked about how the street seems to be disjointed. There's a lot of stores on Moody Street that don't necessarily complement each other," the Brandeis student said. "You have everything from a nail salon to a Sprint (cell phone) store to an Indian market or African market.
A lot of time you have a specific place you're going to go and you're not going to look around. It's kind of a very eclectic street which adds to it's charm but also detracts from some people's feelings about it."
Hadlock said the study strives to better define just who is eating and shopping on Moody Street and the rest of the downtown area.
"One thing that's really emerging from this is we're discovering there are several distinct populations of people that frequent Moody Street," he said. "If you're trying to strategize to make Moody Street a really commercially successful place, you have to think about the distinct segments of the populations. There's college students, old time Waltham residents, people that come from out of town."
Hadlock said the project evolved from a number of sources and previous studies. He said a Boston Globe article questioning the vitality of Moody Street led to talks with Mayor Jeannette McCarthy.
Hadlock said the university usually does one consulting project a semester with the senior honor students. In the past, he said, students worked with state Rep. Peter Koutoujian, D-Waltham, on a study of the a possible pandemic flu.
"He was very impressed by the kind of analysis we did," he said. "When the Moody Street issue first arose in the article last year, Peter called me up and said 'How about doing a project related to Moody Street?"'
Hadlock said the students plan to have the Moody Street study finished by the end of the semester.
Jeff Gilbride can be reached at 781-398-8005 or at jgilbrid@cnc.com.
