Shedding light on downtown problem

If you're downtown often, you've probably noticed the new parking garage that's being completed at Main and Walker. We first paid attention to the garage because of its fugly concrete-frame exterior — yeah, that's the way the garage is really going to look, and apparently, its design isn't sitting too well with residents of Commerce Towers, the condo development across Walker Avenue.

"In my room, it seems like thousands," Daniel Woodson said. "It's probably only about 30 to 40."

Woodson said the lights prevent him from enjoying his life.

"The main thing is the ambiance is lost," Woodson said. "Whatever mood I wanted to create — just have nice jazz music on when I come home or just want to relax, I've got to deal with lights shining into my place, into my face, 24/7."

KPRC reports that about 53 residents of Commerce Towers are affected by the lights. The problem isn't necessarily that the garage's lights are brighter than any other garage's — it's that the exterior of the building is an open concrete frame, which means there's nothing diffusing the light. City Councilwoman Carol Alvarado said there isn't a city ordinance that covers the lighting — of course not — but she's working with the garage owner to see if a compromise can be reached "to put some kind of skin or mesh on the building to block the illumination from the garage lights."

Commerce Towers residents who face Walker Avenue were told that a garage was going to be built across the street, Channel 2 reports, but we imagine they didn't imagine it would be quite so bright. "They're not exactly right in my face, but still, I don't need a full moon anymore," Carlos Roldan, who lives on the 12th floor of Commerce Towers, said. "I have a permanent one."