‘Busiest season ever’ for downtown Bend parking — so the hunt for a spot is on

(Update: Adding information and video)

About 1,000 people a day park in city's Centennial Parking Plaza

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Tobi Marx, Bend's Parking Services Division manager, told NewsChannel 21 that 1,000 cars are using the city's downtown parking garage every day.

“As we come out of COVID and recover from COVID-19 ,everything is coming back really strong, like tourism and traffic," Marx said Tuesday. "It’s nuts.”  

Earlier this year, the city installed a parking gate at the downtown parking garage and charged drivers $1 an hour. The parking garage has about 500 spots for permit holders and daily parkers. Each spot is used twice throughout the day, according to Marx.

“What we are seeing from the numbers and parking transactions, we are like, busier than we ever were before,” Marx said.

It's not just the parking garage seeing an increase in people looking for a spot to park.

“This year has been the busiest we have ever seen,” said Terence Spakousky, the parking manager for Diamond Parking Service, which manages downtown parking spot enforcement.

Spakousky has worked in downtown Bend for eight years. He told NewsChannel 21 capacity at paid lots is up 25% and on-street parking is near 100% capacity.

“We’ve seen a major increase in the amount of people parking downtown," Spakousky said. "The on-street parking and surface paid lots are at 95 percent capacity at the height of the day during lunch and dinner.”