Santa Monica Place garages under construction
A territorial battle is brewing over valuable free parking in downtown Santa Monica.
The dispute is over the two city-owned garages at Santa Monica Place, which sits between Broadway and Colorado Boulevard and Fourth and Second streets.
Santa Monica Place, the indoor shopping mall which has a lease on the publicly-owned facility, claims too many downtown employees have caught on to the garage’s three free hours of parking. It’s widely known that people other than mall shoppers park in the garages and move their cars every three hours to avoid getting a ticket.
As a result, officials are considering restricting the free parking to only two hours, which is what the city offers at its other seven downtown garages.
But in the meantime, mall officials have closed off the stairways on each level that lead to the street to deter the public from parking there for any other reason than shopping at the mall. The outside doors to the garage are locked and the doors inside the garage have large signs that read, “Fire door, alarm will sound.” However, no alarm sounds when the door is opened.
City Hall currently gives $47 tickets to parkers caught remaining in the same space for more than three hours.
But many avoid the fines by moving their cars.
To Santa Monica Place management, the technique is tawdry.
“The intent was not to park for two hours and fifty nine minutes and then move,” said Michael Guerin, senior manager at Santa Monica Place.
At issue is the widely-known ability of parkers to simply move their cars to gain another three hours of free parking. That not-so-secret fact has lured employees at other downtown businesses to park there. Complicating the issue is the fact that the garage was built with public money, though it is leased to Santa Monica Place.
“The agreement clearly gives them certain rights for operation,” said Tina Rodriguez, the city’s redevelopment administrator. “They checked with the fire department, you can still use (the doors) to exit, just not to enter. It’s well within the operational agreement.”
“They checked with the fire department, you can still use (the doors) to exit, just not to enter. It’s well within the operational agreement.” — — TINA RODRIGUEZ City redevelopment administrator
When the two entities signed a lease agreement in the 1980s when the mall was built, downtown didn’t have a bustling business environment and a tourist draw like the Promenade like it does now.
It was agreed at the time to allow shoppers to park for free three hours during the day and then charge at night. The city’s other seven parking structures give the first two hours free and then charge $1 for each additional hour, with a maximum price of $7.
Despite that Guerin said the mall’s sales figures are down partly because of the parking situation, the garage rarely runs out of space on weekdays. However, mall officials are worried about the day it will.
Bill Bortfeld, the city’s parking operations specialist in the parking office, said there have been discussions between city officials and Santa Monica Place representatives about putting the mall garages on the same pricing level. Even so, the garages are for everyone to use, he said.
“They are open to the public because the ultimate owner is the city,” Bortfeld said. “Anyone can park there.”
And they do. Guerin said he watches people run through the garage, move their car from one space to another. He also sees people pull out their rollerblades and head to the beach.
Bortfeld said there are a total of 2,900 spaces in downtown parking structures No. 1 through No. 6 and No. 9, of which 1,900 are rented out monthly by individuals and businesses. There is a four-year waiting list to get one of those spaces, which cost $82.50 a month and is below the market average, Bortfeld said.
City Councilman Ken Genser, who was on a task force to create a new plan for downtown parking, said more spaces are desperately needed. The group targeted some general sites along Fifth Street, which could help alleviate traffic along Fourth and Second streets, where most cars enter and exit the parking garages, Genser said.
Three of the taller parking garages will be retrofitted to withstand an earthquake, while three others will be torn down and replaced with taller ones that can hold more spaces, Genser said.
And while the eventual plan is to tear down the garages surrounding the mall once the area is redeveloped, they are currently be seismically retrofitted, Rodriguez said. The work began a few weeks ago and is scheduled to be completed shortly before Thanksgiving.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 19, 2003. Read the original PDF.