Downtown Las Vegas parking could get easier

Finding a parking place in downtown Las Vegas could get a lot easier if Mayor Carolyn Goodman and new downtown parking czar Brandy Stanley have their way.

Speaking Monday at a news conference, the two women detailed their vision for a downtown where parking rules and prices are clear and concise and will help attract more people to the area.

"Many people don't know where to park, how much to pay or even how to pay," Goodman said. "And that made coming downtown a negative experience for many, and we want to change that."

To that end, Stanley, who was hired in June at the tail end of Oscar Goodman's 12-year tenure as mayor, has completed an inventory of the approximately 32,000 public and private parking spaces and is working on a plan to manage them.

Because just 13 percent of those spaces are on land owned or controlled by the city, the effort will require Stanley to reach out to the casinos, restaurants, stores, bars and offices that own the bulk of the parking spots.

"If anybody says anything about me, I'm persistent," said Stanley, whose official title is parking services manager, a job that includes managing parking issues handled in five different departments. "If I see a parking lot that is underutilized, I am going to do what I need to do to find out who owns it, who has control of it and try to engage them in a dialogue."

Stanley, whose annual salary of $108,762 will come from the city's parking enterprise fund, said she is making plans to upgrade technology on the city's parking meters and to better distribute parking in public and private facilities.

For example, she said it might make sense to vary parking rates downtown according to demand and type of use.

Typically, public spaces across downtown charge $1 per hour. The uniform rate, Stanley said, provides no incentive for downtown workers to avoid spots in front of businesses.

If rates farther from the storefronts were lower and enforcement hours were reduced, it could prompt those workers to park at more distant spots and walk to their jobs, she said.

Improving technology on parking meters so that they can accept credit or debit cards could make parking easier by reducing the likelihood that drivers will return to find parking tickets on their windshield, Stanley said.

The city has many coin-operated meters that force people without quarters handy to either skip an empty spot or run the risk of a parking ticket.

"A lot of the technology we use right now sort of creates the opportunity to get parking tickets because maybe you don't have enough quarters," Stanley said.

Other technology improvements in the works include posting more city parking information online, creating an online system for parking ticket appeals, developing mobile applications to help people find parking spaces and putting data about available parking into an online system to allow for real-time management of parking assets.

If it works according to plan, it should reduce inconsistent and inconvenient parking rules that frustrate businesses, which have to deal with customer complaints about the issue.

Christopher LaPorte, owner of the Insert Coin(s) video game lounge in the Fremont East district, said his customers aren't sure where to park to avoid tickets .

One solution that has been discussed is to devise a universal validation system for the Fremont Street Experience, Fremont East and the Third Street entertainment areas.

However, LaPorte said that could cost small businesses like his too much money as they would be forced to subsidize large parking garages in the area.

He said he would rather the city work with owners of vacant property in the area, which is abundant, to come up with ways to provide safe and low-cost off-street parking.

"They don't have to be giant structures, just paint some lines," LaPorte said.

With just 67 percent of downtown spaces full at peak parking times, Stanley said many of the area's parking problems can be solved without building new lots or garages.

It might even be possible to build a major sports arena downtown without having to add a parking structure, she said, which could save tens of millions of dollars. That would require the arena be built in an area close to offices or other entities that have a high number of parking spaces in lots or garages that aren't used during the evenings or weekends.

Stanley's previous job was in Manchester, N.H., where the city approved an 11,000-seat arena downtown without building new parking structures.

"There were a lot of naysayers, but it actually turned out to work," she said. "If you build it next to an office building, it is a great opportunity for shared parking."

In addition to working on arena parking issues, Stanley's tenure in Manchester included an effort to increase parking rates in some areas of downtown, a move that drew opposition from some quarters.

Before Manchester, Stanley said she worked for private parking companies in New Orleans, Miami and her hometown of Seattle, where she also worked as a valet at the wedding reception of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@
reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.