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Frustrated drivers looking for a place to park in downtown Lexington might be surprised by the findings of a recent study — that most of the area’s parking spaces usually go unused.

Researchers from the firm Kimley-Horn and Associates studied parking usage on selected dates this year to get a sense of how busy the downtown area gets. Of the 3,300 parking spaces they identified downtown, they found most actually remained available throughout the day, members of Lexington Town Council heard at a work session Monday.

The study found that parking occupancy is relatively low even at peak times. At midday on a weekday, about 41% of public spaces and 29% of private spaces were occupied, or only about a third of all parking spaces total. The numbers were even lower on weekends, when a maximum of 20% of public spaces and 11% of private spaces were occupied. Even during special events, the maximum capacity was around a quarter of all available parking spaces.

The only time a lot neared capacity — 85% or more — was in the amphitheater lot and the South Church Street lot by Virginia Hylton during an event.

“When public parking lots along Main Street and Maiden Lane peak, other public parking lots including along S Lake Drive adjacent to County offices, remain well under capacity with occupancies less than 25%,” the study said.

The study looked at parking patterns between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 28, Saturday, Aug. 31, and the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 10, when there was an event downtown.

Mayor Hazel Livingston said the town had asked the firm to conduct a wider study of parking patterns across multiple days, especially as the holiday shopping season heats up. She expects the town to have more data presented in January.

“Some didn’t feel like enough dates had been looked at,” Livingston said. “We’ve asked for more data, more than the few days that were done.”

Town Councilman Gavin Smith pointed out that of the three dates studied, one was on Labor Day weekend and another overlapped with the State Fair.

“I was baffled by the way this was put together,” Smith said. “The average citizen will tell you it’s hard to find parking downtown.”

Town transportation director Randy Edwards said $25,000 was set aside for the study because Lexington Town Council had highlighted parking as a particular concern.

“For years, people have made the assumption that parking is not available downtown,” Edwards said. “So we wanted to have a baseline of what is or is not available in the downtown corridor and just have someone take a look at it.”

The researchers took in a wide view of the downtown area, going along Main Street between the Old Mill and Radius Church, with parking options along the neighboring blocks including county-owned parking along South Lake Drive. Drone footage taken at certain times of day was used to estimate the changes in parking patterns on an average day.

Two-thirds of the parking in the studied area is privately owned, the study found. The bulk of the public parking spaces are clustered around town and county offices in the downtown core, a majority of them — some 900 spaces out of 1,247 — immediately adjacent to the intersection of Maiden Lane and South Lake Drive.

Most of the larger private parking lots are attached to churches — Lexington Baptist, Radius and St. Stephen’s Lutheran. But all those private spaces may not be generally accessible to downtown visitors, or, as Smith points out, someone coming to an event at the amphitheater who parks in a commercial lot will take away a parking space for a customer to that business.

“We’ve caused a scenario where people seeking out these great venues might park for hours at a restaurant or retail or business parking lot, and that causes their lots to rise to capacity, and people will just pass them by if there’s no where for them to park,” Smith said. “The shortage of parking is causing businesses to lose revenue.”

About 140 downtown parking spaces are rated as “accessible,” including 30 public spaces or 2.5%, slightly above the industry standard according to the study. Those are adjacent to government offices, the Icehouse Amphitheater and Virginia Hylton Park. Much of the public parking is at a lower elevation to the rest of downtown, which can cause problems for those struggling with mobility.

Smith said he paid particular attention to accessible spaces after a neighbor pointed out the difficulty they had getting around downtown.

“We frequently close the lot for the Icehouse Amphitheater for events,” Smith said. “That takes away four ADA-accessible spaces, and the next closest are at town hall, 700 feet away and down 30 feet of elevation.”

Livingston said she hoped a revised study would reach out to more people in the disabled community to get a better sense of the challenges they face getting around town.

The writers of the study seemed to anticipate that their findings wouldn’t jibe with how many drivers feel about visiting Lexington.

“While quantitative data suggests parking demand is manageable, qualitative feedback from residents and visitors suggest that proximate parking is a challenge, which could be limiting overall vitality of the area,” the report reads.

It suggests the town could look into building a parking garage, with suggested sites on Maiden Lane, West Main or East Butler streets, which could potentially add more than 100 spaces to the downtown area.

“Beyond providing additional proximate parking, a parking garage within a downtown area can act as an economic development tool by attracting prospective businesses, additional visitors, residents, and if desired, can generate revenue for the Town through paid parking,” the study says.

The town could also consider contracting with private lot owners to provide more spaces. It specifically pointed to the Bodhi Thai restaurant as a centrally located space with available parking, but not more so than the spaces around the Lexington County Courthouse and county administration building, which the study notes are often not at capacity.

But the study said it wouldn’t delve too deeply into the “ancillary benefits” of a garage.

“At the Town’s discretion, additional proximate parking by way of a parking garage could be considered, but if so, should be considered as a response to qualitative feedback and an economic development driver, rather than a need being driven by existing parking demand,” it said.

Edwards said more study would be needed before the town would decide to move forward with a garage or a particular location. Livingston said the town would consider those and other recommendations once they have the revised data.

“We’ll wait until the final study comes back until we make a judgment call on this,” the mayor said. “As the town develops, parking is something that definitely needs to be covered.”

The State

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Bristow Marchant covers local government, schools and community in Lexington County for The State. He graduated from the College of Charleston in 2007. He has almost 20 years of experience covering South Carolina at the Clinton Chronicle, Sumter Item and Rock Hill Herald. He joined The State in 2016. Bristow has won numerous awards, most recently the S.C. Press Association’s 2023 faith reporting award for his coverage of the breakup of the United Methodist Church.