Convention Center parking rates rising 5% to 20%

PROVIDENCE – The price of parking in the R.I. Convention Center’s 2,500 parking spaces will rise June 1 by anywhere from 5 to 20 percent, depending on the length of stay in the garage.

The R.I. Convention Center Authority said the decision was based on increased operations costs and the city’s changing parking-garage market.

A detailed market analysis was at the heart of the increase in event, transient and monthly parking rates, according to a report to the Convention Center’s board of directors by General Manager Timothy Muldoon. The analysis reviewed 28 nearby parking facilities and found that only two offered lower Monday-to-Friday rates.

Monthly parking rates at the Convention Center will rise by 5 percent to 7 percent, the RICCA said, and the average increase will be $9 per month. Plan A, for instance, will go from a current price of $184 per month to $195.

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The transient parking rate will rise 20 percent to $6 per hour from $5.

Parking for trade shows and meetings at the Convention Center will go from $8 to $9.

Parking rates for trade shows and meetings at the Convention Center will rise 12.5 percent to $9 from $8. Rates for all Dunkin Donuts Center family shows and Providence Bruin Hockey game rates also will rise by $1.

Early-bird rates, for those who arrive before 9 a.m. and leave before 6 p.m., will be unchanged at $8 per day.

Early-bird rates were last increased in September, by $1 per day. Monthly rates were last raised in February 2006. And event and transient parking prices were last raised in July 2004, by $1 per event and $1 per hour, respectively.

Over the past three years, the authority noted, the Convention Center’s parking facilities have received upgrades to lighting, emergency call boxes and revenue-control system. The additional revenue will help to pay for that work, and to maintain the facilities, it said.

The increases are projected to generate an additional $62,916 per year in revenue from monthly parking customers, $75,000 from event parking and $40,000 from transient parking, RICCA said in a statement. But even after the changes, the authority said, the Convention Center’s parking rates will remain in the low- to mid-range in the report’s market-rate comparison.

“Based on the large capacity of our garages, it will continue to be important to us to price ourselves competitively,” Muldoon wrote in the report.

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