'This was the place to park': Downtown Halifax parkade nearly triples daily maximum fee

Longtime customers at downtown Halifax’s Park Lane parkade recently received a shock to their pocketbooks when the daily maximum price nearly tripled.

Parkade visitors, who had already seen the daily maximum rise from $10 to $15, are now paying $40.

Park Lane isn’t the only facility that charges that amount, but for many customers the new price is too high. One woman, upon being informed of the increase, said she would turn around and find a cheaper parking alternative.

“Wow, this is $40 a day now?” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I didn’t know that. That’s why it is empty.”

At the time, there were 146 available spots in the parkade, which has 447 spaces.

“This was the place to park,” said the woman.

Another longtime patron said the rise in price seems like customer gouging.

“For many folks now, this is hundreds of dollars a month,” said a woman who identified herself as Melissa.

A government employee, Melissa said she parks at Park Lane a couple of times a week and was surprised by the price hike.

“The increase was without notice, without an explanation,” she said. “It’s not like they are doing some kind of restructuring of the parkade.”

She has a locked-in parking rate but is concerned it may change.

“I was quite surprised that it (went up) just as much as it did, especially as I didn’t even see it go to $15, just from $10 to $40,” said a man named Arthur, another longtime visitor.

“Overall, I was more disappointed that another thing decided to hop on the trend of jacking up the price with no measurable improvements to justify it.”

Many on social media opined that the return of government workers to the office is the main cause for the rise in the daily maximum at Park Lane. However, Lukas Wide, a communications officer at the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, said parking prices are not something they are hearing about from members as a big issue.

The Park Lane parkade is operated by the Universal Group. Attempts to reach the company were not immediately successful.

Rates rising around the city

Park Lane isn’t the only parkade with a high daily maximum. Just 450 metres away, Spring Garden Place also has a $40 daily maximum. Other smaller off-street parking spaces can be found between $20 and $30 a day. If you’re looking for a deal, the Doyle on Queen Street, with 100 spaces, has a $10 daily maximum.

Earlier this year, the Halifax Regional Municipality raised on-street parking rates by 25 per cent, as well as charging for parking on Saturdays in downtown Halifax, Spring Garden Road and downtown Dartmouth.

Hourly parking rates for on-street parking range from $1.25 to $3.75, with daily maximums of $19.25 to $29.75.

Paul MacKinnon, CEO of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission, said rate increases by the municipality play a role in off-street pricing.

“Not that we want to blame everything on the city, but part of this is coming out of decisions by the city,” said MacKinnon.

“This year’s HRM council decided, because they were looking for additional revenues since it was a tough budget year, they decided to stick it to downtown customers who were paying for parking downtown. The rationale they gave quite openly was, ‘We just need some more money.’

“One of the things we did warn them about is that this would spark an increase in the private lot operators,” he said.

“They would see this cue that the city was raising their prices, and ‘That means we can raise our prices.'”

MacKinnon said parking is always top of the list when talking to businesses and customers who come into the downtown.

“The number 1 complaint is parking,” said MacKinnon. “It’s been there for 20 years, and that is never going to go away.“