Federal court clerk Chris Sawyer gave up parking in his favorite lot near Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles last summer when the monthly rate jumped to $100 from $55.
"I couldn't afford it," he said, "so I had to go back to Chinatown." But that's where his Jeep had been broken into, and his walk to the courthouse takes twice as long from there. Soon the price at his Chinatown lot climbed from about $60 to $80 a month.
Cheap, convenient parking -- as Southern Californians have long known and expected it -- is getting harder to find, particularly in high-density places such as Hollywood, Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles.
Two hours in an office building garage in Century City can set you back $28, more than twice what it cost in the early 1990s. Club hopping in Hollywood? It could cost $60 before you even tip the valet.
Commuters who paid as little as $80 a month in downtown Los Angeles in the early 1990s are being hit up for as much as $300 for unreserved spaces. Prefer a prime slot with your name on it? Be prepared to write a check for more than $500 a month.
Basic economics -- rising demand and declining supply -- explain the parking price surge.
With five years of economic growth adding a stream of new buildings and residents, many lots and garages are filling up or disappearing. Housing developers in particular have converted downtown and Hollywood lots into residential buildings. With downtown land prices now surpassing $300 a square foot, it doesn't make economic sense to buy land just to use it for parking, consultants say.
The rise in prices also underscores the region's transformation from an extended suburbia into a more densely occupied urban center with the kind of parking challenges more common in major metropolises such as New York or Chicago.
Nowhere is the shift more evident than in downtown Los Angeles, where acres of asphalt are giving way to housing, stores and other attractions that people want to visit -- by car, of course.
Downtown prices are rising not only on standard surface lots, but also in the garages of fancy high-rise office towers as the buildings finally begin to fill with workers after many years of low occupancy.
The expectation of cheap parking has been kicked to the curb in parts of Hollywood, especially during peak weekend hours for the district's popular nightspots. With 55 clubs in the area, parking lots intended to serve them are frequently overbooked.
