Parking Changes Coming To Legendary Michigan Mall

The Kalamazoo Mall is historic for many reasons but mainly because it was not only one of the first malls in the entire country, but it was the first mall of its kind in the world. The Kalamazoo Mall was the first walking mall to exist, as for years the only access to the mall was by walking and no motor vehicles were allowed. Residents and visitors of Kalamazoo could get a quality meal, be groomed, find clothing, and more while walking the mall.

Since then, the Kalamazoo Mall has maintained its stature in the community and residents and visitors are still enjoying the various shops. Although the mall is still alive and booming, there has been a road paved and there are parking spots available, but this has caused some issues. While people have enjoyed being able to drive to their destinations, they are only supposed to park for 90 minutes at most. They have been abusing that and some business owners have been upset about it.

The City of Kalamazoo has decided to step in and make changes that should benefit both parties in this situation. They made several changes including overnight permit parking while eliminating set hours for meter operations while raising the maximum amount that can be charged per hour for street parking. This was in reference to the downtown district as a whole, but there are changes coming to the mall as well.

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The Kalamazoo mall is the only place that will be seeing an immediate change in the ordinances as there will be parking kiosks installed for the first time in the mall's long history. The rest of parking in the downtown district will be monitored through 2025 but the pricing cannot be changed until the city invest in new equipment.

City Commissioner Don Cooney had this to say about the changes:

That says the traffic engineer can decide we’re going to have charge people from 6 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock at night and that doesn’t have to come back to us. He can say we’re going to have no 90-minute free parking on any street that he wants, and I think that’s too much power for him. I think these are important issues for the city and they should be decided by the people who are representing the city up here

In response, city planner Christina Anderson explains that the engineer already has the power to regulate parking, but the ordinances are his checks and balance, but they now give him more freedom with options on streets that the city wants to encourage more turnover on.