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Fourth-quarter occupancy and revenue rise as downtown utilization ticks up, staff says
Summary
Staff reported higher occupancy and hourly revenue in Q4 FY25 compared with prior years; occupancy rose particularly at several garages and hourly revenue exceeded projections, while an increasing share of transactions remain within the free courtesy window.
Parking staff presented the fourth-quarter fiscal-year occupancy and transaction report at the July 10 Downtown Parking Committee meeting, reporting higher occupancy across many lots and stronger-than-projected hourly revenue.
Ethan Pitney, the city’s parking resource specialist, presented April–June (Q4 FY25) occupancy data compared with the same period in FY24 and FY23. Pitney said Monday–Thursday occupancy across all lots increased about 7–8% year over year, with Friday and Saturday increases of roughly 5–6%. Pitney noted Lot 2 and Lot 3 show farmer’s-market-driven Saturday spikes; Lot 6 (Granada Garage) and Lot 7 regularly show high weekday occupancy and are large contributors to system-wide occupancy measures.
Pitney reported the city collected about $120,000 more in hourly revenue than projections and that hourly revenue has trended upward over the past five fiscal years. However, Pitney also said the share of “free” transactions (vehicles that exit within the courtesy period) has increased since the pandemic; for the fiscal year reported, roughly 66% of transactions were free, while paid transactions are a smaller portion of total entries. Staff said that continued enforcement consistency and technology improvements (LPR and permit integration) are intended to address courtesy-period abuse and increase paid transactions.
Committee members asked whether observed occupancy increases reflected compliance effects from enhanced enforcement; staff said visitation to downtown (measured with a separate foot-traffic tool) appeared up about 5% and that some of the occupancy increase is likely demand-driven rather than enforcement alone. Staff agreed to provide permit-utilization breakdowns by lot in a future report and to continue monitoring occupancy, turnover and permit usage as new enforcement tools and permit e-commerce rolls out.
No formal action was taken on the occupancy report; staff will continue periodic reporting to the committee.
