Downtown Kalamazoo fine-tunes parking as growth and events bring more visitors

Editor’s Note: This series explores the ongoing transformation of downtown Kalamazoo. From a new arena rising to fresh businesses opening and festivals drawing crowds, these changes are redefining how we experience the heart of downtown. This project is sponsored by the City of Kalamazoo. All photos, unless otherwise noted, were taken by Fran Dwight.

KALAMAZOO, MI — Next to the price of gas, needing to find a place to park your car is a huge stress for a driver.

When parking, you’re storing your motor vehicle on a chunk of real estate. It may be privately owned or part of public infrastructure. 

Suburban developments have the wide-open vistas of parking lots surrounding stores and malls. But in dense urban downtowns, those just can’t exist. 

In most urban downtowns, you’ve got to feed the meter or pay at the gate when leaving the parking ramp.

In April, the City of Kalamazoo completed the transition from the old two-head, coin-fed meters to electronic kiosks. Parking rates were changed to reflect the demand on certain blocks. Time limits, to encourage turnover, were enforced.

Some members of our Second Wave staff — names withheld — got parking tickets. We understand that if you’ve had your favorite spots, if your parking habits were set by the old system, then likely you’ve been frustrated by the change. Also, instead of simply putting quarters in a meter, you now have to enter your license plate number, zone, and the time you expect to be parked into a kiosk. Or download an app, create an account, what’s my plate number again…..? What a pain.

There were complaints, both from drivers and Downtown businesses, City staff acknowledged. As a result, on May 12, the City updated parking rates, times, and enforcement. 

The new system’s main feature is to be able to collect data on parking, and it can also be tweaked relatively quickly to respond to community and business needs, City Planner/Deputy Director, Community Planning and Economic Development, Christina Anderson, and parking consultant Rob Bacigalupi say.

Downtown Kalamazoo is going through many changes and will see more in the coming years. They can’t have a parking system that’s set in stone.

A mixed response

Michele Sullivan, owner and stylist at Salon Noir on East Michigan Avenue near the Kalamazoo Mall, has gotten a few clients who’ve grumbled about the parking changes, “but it’s always the clients that rarely frequent Downtown businesses,” she says. 

“The reality is that most thriving downtown areas have paid parking. Anyone who regularly visits downtown districts in other cities understands that. The expectation shouldn’t be to park for free directly in front of every destination,” she says.

The three-hour limit on nearby streets is enough for a full salon treatment, and if more time is needed, she directs her clients to the parking ramps.

Yes, it’s likely the spots near the door of hers or any storefront will be taken. One might have to walk a block or three, maybe more than the distance of a parking spot found on a Walmart lot on a busy Saturday. But Downtown Kalamazoo has more to offer on its sidewalks.

Sullivan says, “Part of the charm of downtown Kalamazoo is the experience of walking through the city, discovering our unique local shops, restaurants, and businesses along the way.”

Some businesses see a need for parking turnover and for customers to be able to shop in a walkable city. And Kalamazoo needs to be walkable, because you’re not always going to find a spot near your destination.

Salon Noir’s owner responded as part of my public Facebook call for people’s parking tactics for the eventful JumpstART weekend, happening this first weekend in June, when the Do-Day Parade, Kalamazoo Pride,  Kalamazoo Institute of Arts Fair, and other events bring thousands Downtown.

Advice ranged from finding a lot outside of Downtown, park, and take the bus in, to park out on the free blocks and walk in, or park at one of the ramps. Some found biking into Downtown convenient and easy.

It became clear in the thread, though, that people in general were frustrated by parking Downtown and frustrated with the new system. Some swore to boycott the big June weekend if they had to pay the $2 an hour premium rate, or to never visit Downtown again.

Eric Oliphant commented, as “Yogi Berra would say, ‘nobody parks there anymore, it’s too crowded.'”

This thread was put up just before the City announced parking revisions May 12. In April and early May, the topic of parking Downtown had people complaining all over social media. 

“The response was mixed,” City Planner Christina Anderson says of what she heard from the community, outside of the heated social media environment.

“Well, the business community, they certainly reacted, and they let us know that they had concerns about the changes,” Bacigalupi says of the initial changeover.

Could the reactions come simply from a change in something drivers are accustomed to doing? Is it that visitors, residents, and workers all have their regular Downtown spots, their preferred ways of parking? 

“I guess it’s probably true for any change that occurs in our community,” Anderson says. “We’ll certainly see it when the streets go two-way as well, right? We are creatures of habit as humans, and it takes us a little bit of time to change our learned behaviors.”

Some online responses focused on the change in rates on some streets. Parking is inconvenient, AND expensive Downtown, some said. Who is even getting all that money?

To be fair, a premium spot would cost $6, though not more, since most are limited to three hours. 

Why can’t parking be free and convenient in Downtown?

“In a healthy downtown, you want turnover,” Bacigalupi says. “You want turnover, especially in front of those prime areas like the Kalamazoo Mall or Michigan Avenue.”

“Turnover” is not a new concept in Kalamazoo, Anderson says. “There’s a rule on the books that says you need to vacate your space when your time limit is up. You can park somewhere else, but it’s got to be a different space that’s at least 500 feet away from the current space now.” 

She adds, “That’s something we’re looking into and to see if that is something we really need to keep on the books.”

Turnover is needed. Even if free, there would still have to be time limits to keep a driver from monopolizing that sweet spot in front of Taco Bob’s all day.

“If you have free parking, you still need enforcement, and enforcement costs money. So you have to figure out a way to pay for enforcement,” Bacigalupi says.

Bacigalupi has been working with the City as the Principal of Mission North, Michigan-based consultants for various downtowns. 

He points to how other downtowns handle parking.

Ann Arbor is “on one extreme, where they have very little free parking.” 

Kalamazoo, South Bend, and Grand Rapids all have a mix of free and paid parking.

But then there’s Holland, with its all-free downtown parking. “It’s an industrial town, so they have a very healthy general fund” devoted to parking, he says.

But a large portion of that general fund goes to enforcement. Some spots in Holland are 15 minutes only, and some are marked as Customer parking only. Downtown Holland workers have parking lots they are expected to use. All overnight parking is banned for those without a permit.  

Downtown parking systems seek to “change behavior,” Bacigalupi says. Scofflaws will be ticketed. Hopefully, most drivers will get “to the point where there are very few, and theoretically, no tickets,” he says.

Eventually, “it just becomes normal to pay for parking in those prime areas,” he says. Also, he reminds, there will be “other free options in other areas where you may have to walk” a few blocks to the destination.

Another question people ask is, where is the money going?

“Unfortunately, there’s actually a loss of money in the parking fund,” Bacigalupi says. There’s been an annual shortfall in the fund. “We will not know the impact of these changes for sure until they have a chance to take hold, (but) we anticipate that shortfall to continue.”

He adds, “Ideally, we’d like to get to a point where it is a self-sufficient fund.”

Collecting parking fees and ticket fines isn’t the best way to make a profit. “Collected revenues go into the City’s parking system budget,” Anderson says. “The parking system should be thought of as a utility. It should pay for itself. It is not a revenue-generating operation currently.”

Parking in a growing city

Bacigalupi points out that downtowns all over are making efforts to grow, to reverse the urban decline of the latter half of the 20th Century.

He says, “as (Kalamazoo’s) Downtown fills up, as it is with more development and the Event Center that’s coming in, land becomes more scarce. You want to attach a price to putting your vehicle in those prime areas.”

But this future growth leads to another question: As more people come to Downtown to live, work, and play, will each individual adult have their own motor vehicle that they’ll have to park somewhere? Will space for parking reach its limit?

“We’re certainly not there yet,” Anderson says. 

There are plenty of free and paid spots Downtown, at the moment, they say. Anderson and Bacigalupi go through the parking numbers:

The City’s parking ramps have around 1,300 spaces. The on-street spots number exactly 1,203.

Then there are the privately-owned Radisson (approximately 900 spaces), Arcadia (700), and Catalyst (300)  ramps. 

Coming up in 2027 will be the Event Center’s 1,300-space ramp. Also on the way, the Kalamazoo County ramp on Kalamazoo Ave. 

The future will be full of other changes. There are “trends going on in the US and the world that may impact transportation, including autonomous vehicles, including a shift of some to transit and bike,” Anderson says. 

But she’s focused on the next few years, she says. The Event Center, opening Fall 2027, could bring Downtown “between 6,000 and 8,500, depending on the event,” so attendees will need to find spots elsewhere when the ramp is full.

This has made Stuart Neighborhood residents worried about a future of people parking on their streets for the Event Center, Anderson knows.

“We have long talked to the Stuaart Neighborhood Association about instituting parking regulations in their neighborhood, be it a permit system for residences, or similar, she says. “We told the Neighborhood Association that we would work with them to create a system that prevented that from happening.”

Nimble

Downtown parking will clearly be a work in progress.

The new system is “more nimble than what we had in the past,” Anderson says.

The kiosks are much more flexible than the old meters, and they tell city officials a lot more about how they’re used.

If the arrival of the Event Center, or more big festival weekends, or booming holiday shopping periods, or new mixed-use housing developments — if any big change causes parking habits to shift, then time limits and parking fees can be changed in the electronic kiosks. 

The kiosks will be collecting parking data, and the City will be examining that and making the results public every quarter, starting this summer.  Anderson says they’ll be looking at “how is the system being used, how many users? How many tickets were issued? How many tickets were forgiven because we have a ticket forgiveness policy? What does that look like in terms of a balanced fiscal system?”

The nimbleness of the system was demonstrated on May 12, after “we heard a lot” in April from Downtown businesses, Meghan Behymer, the City’s Downtown Coordinator, says.

In her department, they’re focused on “the Downtown experience.”

There have been bi-monthly talks about the parking changes with businesses, she says. After talks in the early fall last year, the full rollout was put off until after the holiday season. Some blocks that were going to be premium were changed to free after concerns. 

After the change in April, Behymer received “letters from 35 businesses…. That in itself was so helpful in being able to look at the concerns,” she says.

Behymer heard concerns about customers not being able to park for a short visit.

Another concern was that long dinner-and-a-show evenings out became difficult when enforcement lasted until 8 p.m., and a spot was limited to 90 minutes.  

So, after the May 12 adjustments, enforcement now ends at 5 p.m. Drivers get the first 30 minutes free for short-term stops — but they must still enter their time parked and license plate for the purpose of enforcement.

“Even small parking changes can feel really significant for business owners, especially as they’re operating through other challenges which we see across downtowns across the nation,” Behymer says.

Communication about the changes could’ve been better, she says. The public reaction showed there is “a desire for clear communication and education around the new system,” Behymer says. “Because change is hard, and it’s just different. It’s a little bit of a new process to learn for some.”

Downtown will “continue to be flexible and address it and work towards something that works well for everyone,” she adds.

Everyone? Is it possible to please everyone when it comes to Downtown parking?

“Well, yeah, maybe I shouldn’t say ‘everyone,’” Behymer says. A better way to put it is, “there’s a balance” that all have to work to attain a workable parking system.

“I mean, it’s not a plan that you set it down, and you never evaluate. You’ll constantly need to be reevaluating,” she says.

Downtown Kalamazoo parking this summer, in a nutshell

Premium rate is $2 an hour, base rate is $1.50.

There are plenty of blocks where parking is free, with time limits ranging from one hour to all day.

The first 30 minutes of parking are free.

However, for those 30 minutes on metered streets, one must start a parking session on the kiosk or on the app, so parking enforcement knows how long you’ve been there.

Time limits are, on most blocks, three hours (increased from the original April limit of 90 minutes). But some streets have limits as short as one hour, or as long as all day.

City ramps are free for the first 90 minutes.

Sundays are free on the streets and in the ramps.

Confused about the kiosk? What app do you download? Go to Park Kalamazoo’s page on using the kiosk and on downloading and using the ParkMobile app. 

If you make a tentative plan before you head downtown this weekend, you’ll likely find that parking is less intimidating than social media might suggest. JumpstART weekend is designed to fill Downtown Kalamazoo with art fairs, parades, Pride celebrations, live music, and thousands of visitors enjoying the city together. 

The closest spot to your destination may not always be available, but there are plenty of options. In addition to on-street spaces and City ramps, other lots and garages — including the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts lot during the Art Fair — will be open to help accommodate the crowds. You may have to walk a few extra blocks, but that’s part of the experience. The festivities are spread throughout Downtown, and sometimes the best way to enjoy JumpstART is to park once, leave the car behind, and join the celebration on foot.