It’s the end of free street parking on the mall in downtown Kalamazoo. That's one of the changes the city commission approved to Kalamazoo’s parking ordinance on Monday night.
The city plans to install kiosk style parking meters in the Kalamazoo Mall by the end of the month. Parking on the mall will cost $2 an hour from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Drivers can pay using cash, a credit card, or on a phone app.
Downtown parking structures will be free for up to 90 minutes.
City planner Christina Anderson said the new parking guidelines are meant to help downtown businesses and encourage them to stay open later.
“By doing the meters a little bit later into the evening, we're encouraging turnover and more opportunities for customers to park into those evening hours that we encourage businesses to stay open until,” she said.
Anderson said the city has introduced new measures to make sure drivers feel safe using the parking structures.
“We have recently updated our ramps with a camera system that is linked to KDPS,” she said.
“We have done some lighting upgrades, and we'll continue to make those changes in our ramps - and our surface lots for that matter - moving forward.”
Anderson said the meters on the mall are meant to offset the cost of the free parking structures.
Rob Bacigalupi is a consultant helping to implement some of the changes. He said the spaces on the Kalamazoo Mall are the most popular spots downtown.
“It only makes sense to attach a price to that, along with the free 90-minute parking (in the parking structures), to encourage folks to use some of the other options and free up some of those parking spaces down on the Kalamazoo Mall,” he said.
“So that it's not so frustrating for folks to park there if they really do want to park there.”
The city will also introduce a new overnight parking permit program downtown.
The Kalamazoo City Commission vote came after several months of delays. The city originally announced the parking proposals in June, but postponed the vote until the August 12th meeting.
All but one city commissioner, Don Cooney, voted to approve all three measures.
