TO: Mayor and Members of City Council
THRU: Adam Lindsay, ICMA-CM, Assistant City Manager
FROM: Sheila Thomas-Ambat, PE, CCM, CFM, Public Services Director
Brian McGill, PE, PTOE, Interim Assistant Public Services Director - Traffic Services
DATE: November 4, 2024
RE:
Title
Paid Parking Program Update
end
COUNCIL DISTRICT(S):
Council District(s)
All
b
Relationship To Strategic Plan:
Goal II: Have a responsive City government supporting a diverse and viable economy.
Goal IV: Be a highly desirable place to live, work and recreate.
Goal VI: Have a collaborative citizen and business engagement base.
Executive Summary:
It was requested that at a future Council Work Session, the entire paid parking program be reviewed. This report and presentation discuss the parking agreement between the City and a consultant, program operations, the previous Downtown Parking Study, and recent activity surrounding the parking program. Recommendations for the parking program are included in this report as well as the accompanying presentation. Having a paid parking program and infrastructure should be evaluated across two frames: cost recovery and behavior impacts. All decisions and policies will impact one or both of these frames and sometimes inversely.
Background:
History
At the June 3, 2024 Council Work Session, council requested to review the Paid Parking Program and contracts at a future work session. At the same Council Work Session, and at the June 24, 2024 regular Council Session the Downtown Paid Parking hours were revised from 9:00 AM - 7:00 PM to 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
Program Operations
The City has approximately 6.5 acres of surface lot parking in the downtown area, as well as two (2) parking decks. Combined, the parking program covers over 1,800 City-maintained public parking spaces, including 295 spaces in the Franklin Street Parking Deck, and 363 spaces in the Hay Street Parking Deck.
Parking is enforced by the consultant in the downtown area between the hours of 9AM and 5PM, Monday through Friday. Outside of those times and on the weekends, parking is free unless a special event is active. The special event rate is currently $5 per day, and on-street parking is not subject to the special event rate. On-street, lot, and garage parking rates are currently $1 per hour. Surface lot and parking deck rates have a max charge of $5 per day. On-street parking has no daily max. The first hour of parking in a parking deck is free.
Paid Parking Agreement
A parking operations agreement began December 2019 between the City of Fayetteville and Republic Parking System, LLC (part of Reimagined Parking) to administer our parking program. The agreement provides line-item details for the tasks and fees associated with the parking program as it relates to operations, administration, equipment, and maintenance.
Regarding the maintenance and management of the facilities, the agreement specifies the responsibilities of the consultant and the City. In practice, the consultant walks through the parking decks a minimum of three (3) times a day. Minor maintenance and cleaning is performed by the consultant and/or Parks & Rec staff. Major maintenance and cleaning tasks, such as those associated with elevator servicing or fire suppression system repairs, are contracted to third parties. General cleaning of the parking decks and lots are performed by the consultant daily, with power scrubbing of the parking decks performed quarterly.
The contract term is considered month-to-month and will expire in 2025.
Parking Study
The City of Fayetteville received a completed Downtown Parking Study through Walker Consultants on June 17, 2019. It should be noted that 15 of the 26 recommendations from the Parking Study have been adopted and implemented.
At the time of the report’s release, it stated the downtown study area includes 4,360 spaces that are mixed between on-street, public and private off-street, and government parking. It also found that the parking demand peaked around 1:00 PM at 45% occupied, with “…all parking types [having] significant surplus in supply.” The reported weekend observation peaked during the noon hour with 31% parking occupancy, including during a special event downtown.
The study went on to look at future parking needs, including the impact of the (yet-to-be-opened at the time of report completion) baseball stadium. Downtown users were polled, and of those indicating they planned on attending a game, 77% indicated they were willing to walk between five and ten minutes to the stadium, while 21% indicated they would be willing to walk less than five minutes. Additionally, 60% planned to combine activities before and after the game.
Program Review & Recent Activity
The City currently has the fewest hours of enforcement, tied for lowest parking rate, and one of the lowest event rates among other peer cities. Additionally, as referenced in the Downtown Parking Study, the City does not have a dedicated staff responsible for public parking, which differs from all other peer-evaluated cities at the time of the study.
Recent activity to enhance the parking program includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• Franklin Street Parking Deck utilization is expected to increase with construction beginning on the Crown Event Center and the closure of the County parking lot.
• Staff from multiple departments are reviewing security options, with a focus on cameras and license-plate readers, to attempt to address security and vandalism concerns.
• Staff and the Consultant are reviewing and exploring utility optimization for the parking decks.
• Staff are working to introduce pressurized water to the Hay Street Parking Deck to ease maintenance operations.
From reviewing the program as well as peer city operations, staff are recommending the following for the Downtown Parking Program.
• Create an RFP for a parking program contractor, or investigate bringing parking services in-house as a function of a City department.
• Investigate transitioning parking meters away from accepting coins to ease maintenance costs and concerns.
• Review the possibility of increasing event rates for the Hay Street Deck when the baseball stadium is utilized. The current rate is $5 per day, and a rate of $10 per day would match other peer cities. This would increase revenue for the program and could increase utilization of less-used parking lots and decks.
• Consider changing the start time for parking enforcement from 9AM to 8AM to match peer cities and likely lead to an increase in revenue.
• Investigate increasing the on-street parking rate from $1.00 per hour to $1.50 per hour. This would lead to an increase in parking revenue for the program, and could lead to increased utilization of parking lots/decks.
• Investigate additional wayfinding signage at decision points, to attract potential parking customers to the parking decks and lots.
• As recommended from the Downtown Parking Study, investigate shared parking agreements between the City and privately owned/County owned facilities. This could lead to better utilization of the City parking facilities and standardize the downtown area’s parking operations.
• Consider performing a Downtown Parking Plan Update through a consultant to develop best practices and recommendations to reflect recent developments. The new plan would consider the Crown Event Center, the impacts on other current and expected downtown development, and the now established and operating Segra Stadium patterns of behavior.
Issues/Analysis:
At the June 3, 2024 Council Work Session, council requested to review the Paid Parking Program and contracts at a future work session.
Budget Impact:
N/A
Options:
N/A
Recommended Action:
N/A
Attachments:
Parking_Presentation_20241104.pptx