Downtown parking changes leave Wichita businesses worried

Stewart’s Jewelry and the Hilton Garden Inn don’t compete for customers — just for parking.

The Hilton, on the corner of South Topeka Street and Douglas Avenue, dwarfs the family-owned jewelry store next door.

Customers of both businesses — and sometimes employees — compete for spaces in front of the two establishments.

“If I don’t have parking,” said David Stewart, owner of Stewart’s Jewelry, “I don’t have a business.”

The Wichita City Council has approved a plan to install new digital meters and raise parking fees downtown. The city will start charging between 75 cents and $2 per hour early next year.

Troy Anderson, Wichita’s assistant city manager, said at a City Council meeting that maintenance costs on parking lots, meters and garages have been falling behind.

The city will use the new fees to repair those and provide better parking enforcement at current sites.

The city’s parking fund has lost money for the past five years, according to The Wichita Eagle. The city expects the new meters and parking fees to turn that trend around and generate money to invest in upgrading parking.

A tale of two businesses

Stewart’s Jewelry has been in business for 44 years, all in the same building on Douglas Street. Stewart said he’s seen plenty of change and thinks the new parking plan could be a step in the right direction.

“Parking is always abused here,” Stewart said. “Guests at the hotel next door are always taking up the parking in front of us here.”

Stewart welcomes the extra enforcement from more metered parking stalls. But his parking rivals at the Hilton Garden Inn worry more about how metered parking, allowing only one or two hours in a space, will inconvenience hotel guests.

“We already have guests coming in to complain about parking tickets,” said Joanna Manalo, the hotel’s general manager. “The free parking out front allows guests an easy place to come in and out.”

But both agree on one thing: less parking could hurt their businesses.

“Nobody can have a business without customer parking,” Stewart said. “And nobody is going to walk more than a block to come to a jewelry store.”

What changes are coming to parking in downtown Wichita?

Drivers may soon struggle to find free parking downtown.

Wichita signed a contract with The Car Park to install and enforce fines at the new meters. The city will pay the Idaho-based company $12 million over six years.

The city owns about 8,000 of the around 12,000 parking spaces available downtown. Many of those spaces offer free parking. Some places, such as near the old county courthouse, use coin meters. Plans are underway to determine how many parking spaces downtown will be converted to paid ones.

Anderson told City Council members that The Car Park will work with city traffic engineers to determine which places need more parking control, such as where to place time limits and charge the highest fees.

Some city-owned parking lots and garages will get payment kiosks that will take coins and work off mobile apps.

The City Council also increased parking fines from $10 to $35 earlier this year. The Car Park will have the authority to write tickets.

How will the parking meters work?

The digital curbside meters will look and work much like traditional parking meters, but they won’t leave drivers scrambling to dig up quarters and nickels. The new meters will accept coins, credit cards and payments through an app.

“Our goal is to try and improve the user experience by creating options for folks who are needing to pay,” Anderson told The Beacon.

Anderson said he foresees the new meters will increase revenue for the city, much like the mobile pay system at Century II did.

The new meters will be installed later this year and be fully operational by early 2025.