report<\/a> released by the Long Beach Public Works Department on June 30 found that two of the city\u2019s three public garages \u2014 the ones at 50 E. 6th St. and 50 E. 5th St. \u2014 are consistently left mostly vacant, even through the crush of some major events, summertime weekends and holiday bonanzas.<\/p>\nAn analysis found that the two lots averaged just 26% and 42% occupancy during weekend evenings in 2025. City Place C, the southernmost garage at 50 E. 3rd St. and closest to the Promenade\u2019s restaurants and nightlife, averaged 69% occupancy and occasionally filled up during special events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s plenty of capacity in those facilities,\u201d said Willie Walker, a parking and mobility officer with Long Beach Public Works. \u201cIf you\u2019re saying there\u2019s no parking, then these hundreds of parking spaces disagree with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the behest of the City Council, the department has come up with some ideas to make the underused garages more appealing.<\/p>\n
It comes as tens of thousands of visitors are expected to descend on downtown for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, forcing the city to confront one of urban California\u2019s most persistent headaches: where to park the car.<\/p>\n
Proposals are simple and relatively easy to roll out, Walker said.<\/p>\n
Of the ideas, a valet storage system where permitted operators can drop off cars during events and parking validations for nearby businesses that might feel a lack of street parking hurts their bottom line. They could even set up a shuttle service stop at the garages for events like weddings.<\/p>\n
The report also determined that high-density parking lift systems, which stack vehicles vertically to multiply capacity, are not viable since the city has nowhere to put them.<\/p>\n
The city is also eyeing technology upgrades. The Pike and Aquarium garages already accept Apple Pay and Google Pay, but the City Place facilities do not. Automated monitoring of commercial loading zones \u2014 where double-parked delivery trucks frequently snarl traffic \u2014 is also under consideration to free up street parking.<\/p>\n
Major events at the Queen Mary or new amphitheater generally have enough parking between the 3,000-space Convention Center garage, the 2,400 spots at the Pike Outlets and 1,500 spaces at the city aquarium, Walker added.<\/p>\n
But larger events are on the horizon. When Warped Tour arrives later this month, it\u2019s expected to bring around 55,000 attendees daily. Walker said every available parking asset in the city will be pushed to its limits, with the Pike\u2019s 1,000 spaces already fully pre-sold for both days.<\/p>\n
For now, the $2-per-hour rate at the City Place garages \u2014 unchanged for roughly a decade \u2014 remains among the more affordable options in Southern California. That rate is expected to increase soon, Walker indicated, as the city looks to reinvest parking revenue into facility maintenance, signage and security improvements ahead of the Olympics \u2014 what is promised to be the city\u2019s largest flex test in years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ask a city expert and they\u2019ll make the case: It\u2019s not a lack of parking that ails downtown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-390735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}