…in a City garage. Where does that dough go? 🚗
At any given event or festival in downtown Columbia, you’ll probably overhear a fellow Soda Citizen complaining about a lack of parking (or maybe you’re the one complaining). When you can’t find one of those coveted metered spots around Main St. during Soda City, another option is to park in one of the city’s public parking garages. (JFYI – For Soda City, we recommend trying the Cannon, Lady St., Washington St., Taylor St. or Sumter St. garages.)

Or maybe you just landed a job downtown and the company doesn’t have a place for you to park. I was faced with this predicament a few years ago before I joined the COLAtoday team. Before I realized that monthly garage passes existed, I was running out to feed the meter on Main St. every lunch break for the first few days on the job. Ugh.

Once I secured a monthly garage permit, I was able to park for $52 per month (the minimum monthly garage rate, which goes up to $105 per month in some garages).

Does that seem like a lot to you? This dent in my paycheck got me thinking. How much do city parking garages make? And where is that money spent?

Cannon Garage ft. Dum Spiro Spero mural by local artist Alex Rusnak | Photo courtesy One Columbia

The City of Columbia makes ~$8 million per year via their 8 public parking decks, 6 public parking surface lots + hundreds of on-street meters, all owned + maintained by the City. See a map of garages here.

$500K of those proceeds go to the City’s general fund (for use on finance, human resources, IT, purchasing, budget, Payroll + more), a small portion goes to Public Works/General Services for maintenance + signage to the parking system, and the rest (somewhere around $4.5 million) goes to support the Parking Services Department.

The City spends ~$2+ million per year to operate + maintain parking facilities. (They’re currently working on upgrading the equipment used in City parking decks for a more user-friendly experience.)

Average parking rates per month:

$52/month | Taylor St. deck (unreserved)

$57/month | Arsenal Hill deck (reserved)

$78/month | Washington, Lady + Sumter St. decks (unreserved)

$65/month | Park, Cannon + Lincoln Street decks (unreserved)

Comparatively, if you fed a city meter each day for a month, you’d pay $209.25, or $196.70 with purchase of a Smart Card (excluding $5 registration fee).

But a 31-day ride pass on Cola’s COMET bus system is only $40.

Garages are free whenever meters are not enforced (outside the hours of 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Friday) in the Taylor St., Sumter St. and Washington St. garages – so grab your early morning Drip on Main St. + drinks at Lula Drake after work without paying to park.

(Some downtown private parking garages that are *not* owned/funded by the city include the Matthew Perry Garage at 1100 Richland St. and the Discovery Garage, owned by UofSC, at 851 Park St.)

So – could we ever get a bar on top of a parking garage?

The City says they remain open to development opportunities involving air rights above City parking decks – but vertical construction above existing facilities has different costs + challenges than typical development projects, like building code requirements, zoning restrictions and district overlay requirements. Also, any vertical development project would be required to include additional parking to stay up to code. But if the right buyer comes along – they’re open to the idea.

My last question is for all of you…

Which City parking garage has the best sunset view? Reply to this email to let us know.

– Beth