CLEVELAND — The Cavs vs Denver Nuggets game on Friday night marked the first big event in Downtown Cleveland since the new parking rules went into effect on Jan. 1.
The new standard base rate for parking will be $1.50 per hour, while extended parking up to four hours will be as follows:
- First and second hours: $1.50 per hour
- Third hour: $3
- Fourth hour: $4.50
- Full four-hour parking session: $10.50
The city said special event zones around stadiums will price parking appropriately and ensure greater availability during events.
In addition to the price changes, the city has also updated enforcement hours for Downtown and Ohio City.
“The primary goals of the changes that we're going to be implementing here in early 2026 is the opportunity to create more accessible and available parking when and where folks need it,” said senior advisor to the mayor, Lucas Reeve.
The city told News 5 that weekend parking has been a problem because people park on Friday night and stay the entire weekend.
“A lot of people take advantage of freebies; they will just park go away somewhere for hours or days,” said Clevelander Richard McClendon.
With these changes, I wondered how this could impact local businesses in the area, so I visited Good Pizza on East 4th Street. They told me they were already having issues with parking for their customers.
“That's probably one of the toughest things for people when they make it down here is to find parking,” said Manager Nathaniel Crooks.
Crooks is confident the new changes will help them gain more foot traffic on the weekends.
“No one likes the cost increase, but I think it's— there's some pros and cons. We're hoping it helps on the weekends because that's our busiest time with all the events and everything going on Downtown,” said Crooks.
People may also notice the city has been working to change the way people pay, by replacing coin meters with the Park Mobile app.
“Now we can really collect a significant amount of data about how folks are using parking and use that information for future decisions on parking,” said Reeves.
The city says they aren’t doing this to make money.
“Many of the other cities sometimes charge $2 or $3 per hour. So, we really wanted to make sure that in our modernizing process here we were kind of threading the needle between creating that greater level [of] accessibility for folks, while at the same time making parking affordable,” said Reeves.
Some people who visit downtown often were upset with the new changes.
"I think it'll deter most people because so much of the business is from people commuting from out of the area to down here, and I feel like that will impact businesses," Clevelander, Connor Murray, said.
The city is encouraging people who want to spend more than four hours downtown to use the garages. They also plan to increase the number of employees who will help ticket those who aren't following the rules.
