Angelenos are proud, justly, of the resurgence in downtown Los Angeles. We all know the story of how it went from ghost town to boom town over 15 years. Something like 53,000 live there now, and hundreds of restaurants, bars and clubs now call downtown home. People have taken to calling it DTLA as a textable shorthand. All that’s great.

But for the resurgence to get to the next level, downtown needs retail and a lot more of it. As you can see in the Special Report that begins on page 21in this issue, retail is indeed registering downtown. However, there’s a problem.

For retail to grow there, there needs to be parking. Relatively abundant, accessible, safe and inexpensive parking. The kind that is aimed at in-and-out traffic. The kind that accommodates shoppers.

That’s a different kind of parking than exists there now. If you’re a resident or an office worker downtown, parking is probably not a problem. You may well have a reserved stall in your condo or office building; you can walk to a restaurant or bar and take a cab or Uber back. But if you don’t live or work downtown and you want to swoop in to do some shopping, you probably can’t park in someone else’s condo or apartment building and you may not want to park in an office tower – unless you’re in the mood to pay $30 and walk five blocks.

If you luck out, you might score an on-street spot – and accept the 50-50 chance of returning to find a parking ticket under your wiper. And then there are those odd surface lots (which are slowly disappearing thanks to downtown’s increasing development). Their prices mysteriously seem much different from what’s posted, and I have to admit to feeling a pang somewhere in my innards when I hand over my key and walk away. But right now, surface lots may be your best option if you’re downtown to do a little retailing.

Actually, if your destination happens to be near the Pershing Square Garage, that would be your best choice. Relatively speaking, it is safe, inexpensive and has abundant spaces (even if it is baffling to find the first or second time). Likewise, the Figat7th center has 500 parking spaces in a garage next door. Get your ticket validated at one of the shops, and it costs only $1 for the first hour and $4 for three hours. But those kinds of garages are rare and scattered downtown.

Now think of Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The golden triangle in Beverly Hills. The Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. The Hollywood & Highland Center. They have big, safe and inexpensive self-parking garages that are close by. That’s a big reason – maybe the biggest reason – those places have thriving retail and restaurant scenes.

Downtown needs garages like those. Without that kind of parking, downtown’s retail surge may stall.

So who’s going to take the lead? You might look to the city, but I wouldn’t be optimistic. For one thing, the Los Angeles City Council is too smitten with the magic thinking that mass transit will solve this problem. Even though only 1 percent of trips in Los Angeles County are by train.

No, the business community may have to take command. Carol Schatz, who’s head of the Central City Association and the Downtown Center Business Improvement District, said she’s aware that her two groups may have to tackle the retail-friendly parking issue.

It seems a big and daunting task, but her groups have been successful in methodically transforming downtown from that ghost town to boom town. (First they pushed residential development, she explained, then restaurants, bars and nightclubs and now retail.) And if not for the suddenly burgeoning retail sector downtown, there’d be no need to develop shopper-friendly parking, she said.

“It’s a challenge,” she said. “But it’s a challenge I’m happy we’re going to face.”

Charles Crumpley is editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].