The three public parking structures in downtown San Luis Obispo will have free parking days during the holiday season.
Parking Services Supervisor Alex Fuchs said the San Luis Obispo City Council adopted a resolution last week to offer 13 days of free parking to encourage economic activity.
“The holiday season is one of the most significant times of the year for businesses," Fuchs said. "Coming out of a pandemic, we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can for them.”
Free parking will be offered in the downtown structures on Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Parking will also be free every Sunday in between.
Overnight parking rates will still apply in the structures during free-parking days.
Parking rates have also been reduced during the weekdays from $12.50 to $6. That’s a permanent change that became effective July 1.
“It’s really not only for customers but employees as well. We know during holiday periods — there’s a lot of seasonal hiring — that they’ll park in the structure," Fuchs said. "It’ll be less of a hit to their pocket book and they’ll hopefully want to spend a little bit more time downtown after a shift and do some of their own shopping.”
Fuchs said Parking Services hopes this will help relieve the immediate pressure people feel when paying for parking.
“We’ve noticed that even though there was some stress and tensions during the pandemic, people coming out of it have [had] even more so because they don’t know what environment they’re walking out to — what changes have been made — and there [have] been a lot downtown,” Fuchs said.
Fuchs said Parking Services does expect to see a small economic impact in their revenue.
“We’re thinking a one percent hit to our revenue collection from the parking structures for the 13 days," Fuchs said. "Three of them we already provided for free anyway and Sundays we only operate from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. with the first hour free so we’re not missing out on a whole lot.”
Fuchs said that minor loss will likely be more than made up for in on-street pay station use.
For more information about parking in San Luis Obispo, click here.
