JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Downtown Investment Authority has approved updates to the city’s official parking rate schedule, a move leaders say is designed to make downtown parking more consistent and easier for visitors to understand.
The updated rates, which take effect June 1, apply to all municipal parking garages managed by the Office of Public Parking, but the most significant numerical change affects the Ed Ball Parking Garage.
Under the new schedule, the daily maximum at Ed Ball Garage will drop from $50 to $30.
DIA officials said the $50 maximum was originally put in place several years ago to discourage city employees from parking in the garage all day. But over time, the high fee began affecting visitors attending longer public meetings or events.
“It was increased to $50 a couple of years ago to discourage city employees from parking there all day,” said Colin Tarbert, the authority’s chief executive officer. “What we started seeing was people who were visiting for a public meeting or something that runs long, and then they get this $50 rate for downtown. So we lowered it to $30, which is more reasonable but still high enough that we won’t have employees there parking all day to take up spots.”
The updated schedule also formalizes nighttime, weekend and special event parking rates across all DIA-managed garages.
For nighttime parking, the rate will be $5, which Tarbert said is already what the garages have been charging in practice. Weekend and special event rates are also included in the updated schedule, bringing the written policy in line with rates already commonly used during events.
“It’s not that significant — we are already charging $5 in the evenings,” Tarbert said. “This will codify what we were doing in practice and in the code. We did it to attract more people downtown so they will know we have parking availability.”
Tarbert said the agency has been opening more garages on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights as downtown activity increases, and the goal is to make parking more predictable for drivers.