Lack of affordable parking 'disheartening' for some businesses in downtown Kitchener

Some small businesses in downtown Kitchener say the lack of free or affordable parking is discouraging car commuters from visiting, and that's affecting their bottom line.

"They end up cancelling their memberships for the massive reason of no parking," said Lo Koehler, manager at The Attic, a yoga studio in downtown Kitchener, and one of the local small businesses that says it is losing clients because of the lack of parking.

The Clothing Exchange, a vintage thrift store, has a similar story. The owner, Bobbie Lynn Kennedy, said she had a huge client base when her store was located just off the main street in downtown, which was also close to a parking lot.

As soon as she moved her business downtown, she said sales dropped dramatically. Clients would send her messages saying they couldn't find parking and were leaving. 

"My sales went down 75 per cent," said Kennedy. Her store closed at the end of July, and she says one of the big reasons was the lack of parking.

Despite the 300 free two hour parking spots in the downtown, people still struggle to find a place to park. Koehler suggests this could be attributed to the patios lining the streets of the downtown area. 

The Attic has a patio directly in front of the studio, and several more close by along the same street.

"It's super disheartening when there's already a lack of free parking and then we see all of these patios going up in those free parking spots," said Koehler. "If we have two classes running at the same time, that's almost 40 people. Well, where are those 40 people parking?" 

Ajoa Mintah is the founder and chief ice cream maker at Four All Ice Cream. The store has two locations, one in uptown Waterloo and a newly opened one in downtown Kitchener. 

She said that the Waterloo location is a destination for people from Guelph and Cambridge.

"One of the things that appeals to people visiting us is that they can park and then come visit us," she said. 

The downtown area in Kitchener has multiple paid lots and parking garages, but the price can be prohibitive for some.

All the lots in the downtown range from an hourly cost of $2.60 to $3, while covered parking garages are $4 for the first two hours. While this may not seem like a lot of money, it can add up for consumers. 

Garry Croke says he refuses to pay to park his car downtown "to go shopping in stores to spend more money." Instead he parks his car outside of the downtown area and walks. 

A cyclist, George Abraham, said he avoids the parking problems by going "everywhere with the bike."

Jihan Al khouri is an employment counselor at the Working Centre, a service that helps provide people with job counselling and other social services.

She said her clients struggle with the time limit on free parking.

"They sometimes get fines because we have long waits," she said.

For people who work downtown, paying for parking is unavoidable.

"Lots of people that work downtown, we work longer than two hours a day. So that means that all that parking is eating into our paycheck, and everything's already expensive," said Koehler.

Daily rates at a parking lot ranges from $13 to $14.95 and the covered garages have a daily max of $16.20. Paying this amount on a daily basis adds up to $80 a week. 

The monthly parking rate is a bit cheaper at around $145 for parking lots and $165.75 for parking garages.

Change may be coming to the parking situation. The City of Kitchener is coming up with a long-term parking plan, which will roll out over the next 20 years.

Barry Cronkite, director of transportation services in Kitchener, said the plan will review parking operations downtown. 

He said they hope to have the strategy developed by next spring.

There is little indication that the plan will include free parking. 

"If we continue to operate as an enterprise, which is essentially trying to operate on that user-based system, then free parking can be a challenge," said Cronkite.