Rising downtown population
poses parking conundrum

By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | November 2024

With the City of St. Paul, the St. Paul Downtown Alliance and a handful of other entities working to triple downtown’s population from 10,000 to 30,000 in the coming years and increase visitors by 20%, one question arises that some already find themselves asking while circling downtown streets: where can I park?
Lack of affordable, convenient parking can deter some suburban visitors looking to hit the city for entertainment and make it tough for downtowners to shop outside their usual commercial corridors.

Currently, there are about 28,500 parking spaces downtown. Most of them – 94% – are off-street, and about 25,000 are open to the public daily. Should the city’s population and tourism boom as desired, the number of parking spaces will need to match its growth. However, there’s no official plan for that at this point.

The most recent plan addressing parking is the Downtown Parking Management Strategy, created in 2015 by the CapitolRiver Council, St. Paul’s planning council for downtown. It laid out several ways to improve the parking environment downtown including requiring all facilities to use the same payment app, assigning a city employee to oversee parking and changing parking meter time limits. Currently, St. Paul uses the Passport Parking App, which allows users to pay and extend parking time from their mobile phone. The app also sends reminders of how much time is left in a parking session.

The Downtown Alliance unveiled its Downtown Investment Strategy in March, outlining its population growth goals for downtown which includes adding 20,000 residents, 20,000 workers for a total of 75,000, and increasing the number of annual visitors by 20% to 10 million. The report identified three ways the public and private sectors can work together to reach the goals: convert office space into housing, invest in pedestrian-oriented streetscape improvements and advance downtown St. Paul’s most strategic redevelopment opportunities. The Alliance also got approval this year to expand the Downtown Improvement District to help increase cleanliness and safety in downtown.

As more office buildings are converted into housing, tenants at buildings that lack adequate parking may be forced to park on the street, taking prime spots near parks and other amenities that outsiders aim to visit. The City has never required downtown real estate developers to create parking as part of projects, and in 2021 made that change citywide. However, properties with more than 25 residential units or 20,000 square feet are required to invest in “travel demand management actions,” which encourage other means of transportation separate from cars like subsidized transit passes and protected bike parking.

Carbon neutrality by 2030
If the parking supply doesn’t stay on track with population growth, then in a few decades people may not be asking where they can park but instead if they should sell their car. According to the Metropolitan Council, surface parking reduces the overall density of an area and can dominate a neighborhood, and structured or underground parking can be costly and make it more difficult to finance a project. Either way, parking is a limited resource. The Council said as car-sharing services such as Evie Carshare, HourCar and Car2Go become more common, the number of parking spaces needed will lessen. Likewise, finding ways to encourage more people to use public transit, bike and walk will help curb the need to increase parking.

The City of St. Paul has extensive biking trail systems that connect business centers and points of interest, and they’re continually being improved. In fact, the city of St. Paul recently adopted a new bike plan, paving the way for up to 163 miles of new off-street bike lanes to be created in the city by 2040, bringing the bike network to a total of 335 bike lane miles. This work is part of the city’s goal to reach carbon neutrality for city operations by 2030, and citywide by 2050. Transportation accounts for approximately 30% of all the City’s carbon emissions, the largest amount compared to any other sector.

New parking ramp
Interstate Parking, which operates 15 parking facilities in downtown St. Paul, 41 in Minneapolis, four in Duluth and another 55 across Wisconsin, Illinois, North Dakota and Colorado, is slated to open a new private parking ramp in November dubbed the Cedar Street Car Park, at 379 Cedar St. It will have 188 contract spaces for people living at the Osbourn 360 and 370 buildings. The new facility features a high-speed roll up door, license plate recognition technology, access via credentials on a mobile phone, fencing and security cameras.

Paul Schnettler, chief operating officer of Interstate Parking, provided insight to the downtown parking scene. He said the number of people using parking facilities has almost returned to normal since the pandemic although Monday and Friday numbers are still lagging.

“The daytime parking is probably around 70% [what it used to be], but it is starting to trend upward, finally,” he said. “The evening and event parking is up about 130% post-COVID. People are coming downtown to party and have fun, but they’re not coming downtown to work. We’re seeing that in almost every city we operate.
“So many garages are retrofitting… to keep the homeless out and protect their assets,” he added. “Most people won’t build apartments unless they have access to parking, because their tenants need that.”

Challenges for visitors
Common struggles facing visitors are unfamiliarity with locations of public ramps and lots, and the fact that rates can increase substantially during events at the X, CHS Field and other venues. For example, at one surface lot, one can park for $6 after 4 p.m. and on the weekends. However, during an event the rate rises anywhere from $10 to $30. Downtown parking meters are enforced Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m., except for City holidays. Night rates start at 6 p.m., unless event rates are in effect. Day rates start at 8 a.m. Rates vary based on meter location. If you’re lucky enough to find on-street parking expect to pay $2.25 per hour during the day or $1.25 per hour at night. During events, rates increase to as much as $3.75 an hour. For an interactive map of public parking spots available downtown, visit stpaul.gov/parking-saint-paul.

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