City announces event day pricing for parking garage
Published 3:49 pm Thursday, September 19, 2019
The new downtown parking garage is scheduled to open next week, and one of the last pieces of the new revenue model was determining what to charge to park on special event days.
During Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, a price for Ole Miss football game days was approved.
The seven home-game Saturdays in the fall are defined as a special event, as well as Double Decker weekend in the spring. Fans who want to take advantage of the new four-level parking garage will be able to do so for an all-day fee.
On Saturdays when Ole Miss is hosting a non-Southeastern Conference opponent, the price to park will be $10 per vehicle. For Saturdays with an SEC opponent in town, the price will increase to $20 a vehicle. The price is good for all day, but if a vehicle leaves and then returns to the garage, they will have to pay again.
The prices were determined during the Downtown Parking Commission’s regular meeting on Sept. 6.
“We wanted to do something different for our garage and have special event parking for the entire garage,” said Matt Davis, director of parking for the City of Oxford.
People who purchase one of the new parking permits, which will begin to go on sale on Sept. 30, will not be exempt from paying the special event pricing. The permits will still be valid on all off-street lots on home game days, but will only be valid Monday-Friday on weeks with Ole Miss home games for the first floor of the garage. The second through fourth floors will be free to the public.
Davis said they will place signs asking people to remove their cars from the garage on Friday nights. It was asked by the Board if, instead of towing vehicles that were left overnight, a ticket could be issued for $50, which is the fee for parking violations around the Square on game days. Davis said they could look into do that, but an official decision for a citation fee was not made.
There will be an attendant at the entrance of the parking garage to take up money on those Saturdays where special event pricing is in effect. The pricing will begin with the Oct. 5 Homecoming game against Vanderbilt. The Board did not determine what the price will be to use the garage on Double Decker weekend, but a price of $25 had been used as an example during the planning phase of the new revenue model.