Downtown Pensacola
Paid parking returns to downtown Pensacola on Oct. 5. City Parking and Constituent Services Director Lissa Dees joined me on Rick’s Blog Live to walk through what is changing, what is not and how to avoid a ticket.
- Dees said the free parking was a courtesy during construction. With the work wrapping up, the city is returning to managed parking so spaces closest to businesses turn over instead of being taken by the first driver who arrives at 8 a.m.
What’s Changing
- Higher rate on Friday nights and Saturdays: The city is proposing $1.75 for those periods, when occupancy is highest. All other rates stay the same.
- Council vote: The rate change needs City Council approval, scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 24.
- Free Mondays: The city is also asking council to make Mondays free.
- Already free: Sundays, federal holidays and about 60 percent of the city’s parking spaces are free all the time.
Discounts
Seniors: Anyone 65 or older can buy a senior permit for $10 a month, regardless of where they live. It is available for one month, three months or a year. Your tag number is registered, so you park in a city space and do not have to start a session.
- City residents: Residents get a rate of 75 cents an hour anywhere downtown through the ParkMobile app. You still start a parking session, but the app recognizes your registered tag. If you have more than one vehicle on your account, make sure the permitted one is selected.
How to sign up: Go to parkpensacola.com and click on the permit page. The city website links there too, but going directly saves a click.
Know Your Zone
Dees said the most common fear she hears is that people cannot tell city parking from private lots. The city worked with a sign design firm from Amsterdam to make city signage easier to spot.
- City parking zones always have two digits. If the app shows a zone with four or five numbers, it is not city parking.
- Private lots use red and green signs. Vehicles in red-zone lots can be booted.
Grace period: The city is running a warning program. Your first ticket will be a warning, and the second will probably be one too. By the third or fourth, Dees said, it is no longer an accident.
Jefferson Street Garage
The garage’s express pay system will not be ready Oct. 5. Cameras have been installed, but the rollout comes later. Once it is live, drivers who select express pay in ParkMobile will be billed automatically when the camera captures their tag entering and leaving. No phone or pay station needed.
Easiest Way to Pay
For regular downtown visitors, Dees recommends the ParkMobile app. Download it and set it up at home, not ten minutes before a show at the Saenger. Occasional visitors can still use a pay station with coins or a dollar bill. ParkMobile also works in other cities, though rates vary.
Where the Money Goes
Dees said parking revenue is reinvested downtown. Before paid parking was suspended, it funded a free trolley that ran on Friday and Saturday nights. It also covers repairs, maintenance, elevators and cleaning.
Last Thursday night we made a rare exception to our boycott of Downtown businesses until the City drops the charges on Michael Kimberl, as we let our longing for the old time’s sake of what were better days at the County and in the City get the better of us.
So we headed to Wine Bar, where we used to go after BCC meetings, soak in the vibrant and eclectic atmosphere of Downtown Pensacola during a truly amazing period in its history, and sit sometimes until close talking with what was always a bunch people who would stop for a drink when walking by. (I think the only other exception we have made in at least a year was to have a couple of drinks outside at O-Reillys the day we turned in customary use affidavits, because a spot out front was where we found to park.)
Back in the good old days, pre-covid and before half the population lost their MAGA minds and got meaner than junkyard dogs, we always saw a ton of people we knew and were friendly with from all walks of life–politics, arts, restaurant scene, and, yes, homeless regulars we were friendly with, who never bothered us or anybody else that we saw. Downtown was just wonderful then. I made the decision to move here the first time I drove through Downtown Pensacola–videoing the architecture while I called my husband and said, “I found a mini New Orleans that is just amazing. I’m coming back to pack us up.”
Downtown has NOT improved for the better in the time we have been absent. In fact, the weirdly vacant vibe, which over the evening gave way to a vaguely post-Apocalyptic feel, was sad and *super* uncomfortable. We didn’t see a single person we knew–not one–in the over two hours we sat outside, until thank God Carter J showed up to salvage what until then had been a pretty somber and truly creepy evening as we kept looking around with our jaws kind of dropped, saying “what in the *hell* happened down here.”
The loss of all that parking goes without saying–the businesses would have been *far* better off agreeing to make a few blocks a ped mall, but of course the DIB “leading lights” stubbornly fought that, so they got what they asked for. But the most stupid, back asswards decision was shoving the outside dining to the street side. Been living in wonderful outdoor dining cities my whole adult life–Iowa City, Orlando (during its Downtown’s heyday), New York, Boston, and Philly, not to mention travelling in Europe and Asia, and have never encountered such an awkward set up. Basically you have a choice of having your back to the people passing behind you (super uncomfortable), or to the street while breathing exhaust (super uncomfortable). This street-side placement isn’t the same feeling, at all, as places that have *both sides* filled with tables and walking in the middle, as Pensacola’s regs have allowed for such sparse outside seating that it’s like an awkward, disjointed line separated from the restaurant by a weird psychological no-go moat. Kevin considered it a return of the same kind of “GO AWAY” scream that used to emanate from Downtown in the 80s.
Drop the charges on Michael and fix what you’ve broken, DC, and we might be spending our money Downtown again. Whether we come back or no, it looks like for whatever reason there are a hell of a lot more people than us who have written Downtown out of their evening playbooks (unless piled into one of the behind-glass events going on that weirdly never spilled out onto the sidewalk). Clearly the problem wasn’t the homeless after all, was it.