In an effort to spur last-minute holiday shopping for local residents and visitors, Santa Monica City Council has extended free parking in downtown public parking structures from 90 minutes to three hours effective December 22-24, 2023.
Mayor Pro Tempore Lana Negrete mentioned how Macerich, the Santa Monica-based real estate investment trust that manages Santa Monica Place shopping mall and its attached parking structures supported this gesture.
"They were in full support," Negrete said, adding, "While shopping is still a reason to visit the Promenade, there’s dining, you can watch a movie and for families who are parking in the downtown area to go down to the pier, three hours makes a difference … It’s another opportunity to encourage people to come back to the downtown area to shop … And this is one of the small gestures that we can do, in order to help our businesses out."
Andrew Thomas, CEO of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. (DTSM) spoke during the Public Input session regarding this issue. "My board has not taken a position on this item, so I can’t give you our specific endorsement, but I can say that I believe this item falls within our general scope and mission of supporting our local businesses and doing what we can to improve our parking experience."
"I also believe this will be a very nice incentive for our visitors, for our residents and for local businesses. And if this item does move forward, I can commit DTSM resources to promote this free parking during this period of time to the fullest extent possible," Thomas added.
However, there was a little concern about whether or not the juice was worth the squeeze. "When we did this in 2020, we calculated there was a loss to the city of approximately I think it was $160,000. Do we have any estimate about what the loss here would be?" Councilmember Gleam Davis asked.
City Manager, David White, responded, "Staff did a high level analysis and estimates about a $30,000 loss in revenues for the three days. And then there are some nominal costs associated with marketing, putting up additional signage and reprogramming the machines."
Davis raised the question of whether more could be spent on other incentives, referencing that Beverly Hills offers two hours of free parking and Century City was down to just one hour. "So we’re certainly within the competitive sweet spot for free parking," she said, before adding, "I’m just wondering if there was some thought given to something else that might draw people to the Promenade in terms of the shopping ambiance that wouldn’t include traffic and pollution."
And while Councilmember Jesse Zwick informed the dais of his support for the item, he too expressed concerns saying he was "skeptical" that this would truly benefit local businesses based in Downtown.
"In December 2020, the City of Santa Monica implemented … a longer period of free parking in the downtown lots. It was enabled at parking structures one through six, but as a means of a natural experiment, the paid parking was maintained at the same rates and structure seven and eight. And then the city studied what happened as a result."
Zwick said that the conclusion of that study indicated that despite offering more free parking in structures one through six, the regular paying structures seven and eight had just as much, if not several times more. The conclusion was that parking behavior was largely driven by nearby amenities and attractions. "Essentially, people park close to places that they wanted to go to and less so by the benefit of the free parking," he said.
Zwick quoted the Santa Monica parking manager’s report from that time, "Free parking devalues the inventory. Parkers are more location sensitive than price sensitive. Paid parking helps to manage the supply and to manage effective turnover for nearby businesses."
Ultimately, Councilmember Oscar de la Torre moved the motion with the friendly amendment that an after action study was conducted to analyze any financial impact this had to the City. Negrete seconding the motion and Councilmembers voted unanimously, 7-0 to approve this item.
