Downtown Parking Management & Operations Analysis
Pensacola, Florida
Phase One Services
The Pensacola Downtown Improvement Board (DIB) hired Urban Place Consulting Group to perform a parking management analysis for the downtown Pensacola parking system. Andy Miller served as the project manager for the consulting assignment. The project included a review of both on-street and off-street municipal parking facilities and operations. The need for this parking analysis was identified by the DIB Board of Directors out of a desire to enhance the overall downtown parking experience for users and visitors. This awareness of the need to address parking in a more comprehensive and proactive manner was due in large part to negative perceptions about the downtown parking experience as demonstrated through numerous customer and community surveys that are regularly conducted by the DIB.
Our analysis found that the existing parking management and organizational structure in downtown Pensacola was convoluted and fragmented. There was no one staff person or entity in charge of planning, managing and overseeing the on-street and off-street municipal facilities and operations. The parking system was operating largely on “auto pilot”, with key aspects of the program (such as meter maintenance/collections and operation of off-street parking facilities) being contracted out to vendors, with apparently little or no contract monitoring or oversight being performed by municipal staff.
Because of this historic lack of parking management and leadership, the parking system was suffering from years of neglect. The municipal garage was poorly maintained, uninviting and underutilized because customers didn’t want to park in it. The majority of on-street parking meters were old, obsolete and malfunctioning, causing frustration for customers and visitors. Prime on-street free two hour parking areas were being habitually abused by owners and employees parking all day due to a lack of proper enforcement. Parking meter and fine revenues were placed into the City’s general fund and not reinvested into the parking system. Basically, the downtown Pensacola parking system received a failing grade in ten out of eleven categories.
Our recommendations included the development of a new management and organizational model that consolidated on-street and off-street parking and transferred overall management responsibility to the DIB. Under the new model, a parking enterprise fund will be created and all parking revenues will be retained by and reinvested into the parking system. We recommended that parking enforcement be privatized. Our long term plan also included a phased approach to repairing the municipal garage and upgrading on-street parking meters and enforcement technology.
Click here for the Downtown
Pensacola Management &
Organizational Analysis Phase 1
