We all know that parking in Waikiki is at a premium and it’s harder and harder to find free parking in Waikiki. Well, the situation is about to get worse, probably a lot worse. I guess we should have seen this coming, but we were caught off-guard. We find it a sad ending to an era for us at least, of free parking during the day at Ala Moana Shopping Center.
Paid shopping center parking started in April and it is going to expand.
Four areas of the shopping center currently have paid parking, while the rest is free. But the writing is on the wall. Clearly there are two things at play:
- The shopping center is seeking to increase profits via very lucrative, low-impact paid park.
- They have long wanted to stop people from parking at Ala Moana who were actually not shopping there. An example is the hotel, where we’ve attended events and parked for free in the shopping center.
- Finding parking at Ala Moana shopping center has long been a challenge.
Premiumpark.com’s paid parking plan.
Varying rates in effect are as follows:
1. For parking we just checked, 1-4 hours was priced at : $2.88 per hour, pus tax and service fee. Total cost is $4.30/hour.
2. For more than four hours discounted rates apply.
6 hours: $14.39 plus tax and fees.
10 hours: $19.18 plus taxes and fees.
Full 24 hours parking: $28.78 plus taxes and fees. As far as we know, there will be no in and out privileges associated with 24-hour parking, but that might be a good idea for them to pursue.
3. Other parts of the mall have cheaper parking listed from $1.92 per hour plus tax and fees.
4. We see reference to surge parking, but we aren’t clear what that means or how it will be implemented. We are reminded, of course, of Uber’s surge prices, which can be ridiculous.
No parking validation option at this time.
There is no indication of store parking validations. So for now, at least, it is all paid if you choose those parking spaces, and it is handled exclusive though the vendor’s phone app.
We haven’t seen how much parking violations will cost, but we can imagine they will be high.
Advance parking reservations will be help.
One of the positive aspects of this is that you can reserve your parking stall in advance. We can’t tell you how much time we have spent over the years driving around the shopping center looking for parking at crowded times of year and especially on weekends.
How will the mall know if you paid or not? Even more of a reason to shop with Amazon. Soon it will be like Waikiki – just for tourist.
Hey visitors get ready to be charged a fee also for the popular botanical Garden Ho’omaluhia on the windward side of Oahu! And reservations being implemented too! Remains free for us residents!
Can’t wait to see this back-fire miserably. What Mall requires it’s visitors to pay for parking??? Can’t think of anything worse that would deter shoppers from going in the first place… Mainland malls would Never.
I generally don’t shop at Alamoana, because it has become too overpriced. With this new parking fees, I probably won’t go at all.
Worst idea ever! I for one am tired of being nickled and dimed to death having to pay to park every single place. I don’t go there very often now as it is and if they charged for parking I wouldn’t go at all. Also, I’m not too good for the bus 🙂
If I have to start paying to park at Ala Moana Mall, I’ll start shopping at Wal-Mart, or Costco, where parking is still free.
I agree with a lot of the people commenting about locals abandoning Ala Moana for the paid parking. There should be a kama’aina special or free for kama’aina. Bottom line, paid parking or not, he mall hasn’t really been inviting to the locals for a long time. So many stores catering to the tourists. What happened to a lot of the good local businesses that were squeezed out of the mall? When I go to Ala Moana nowadays I do more looking than shopping. I shop at a small list of stores cause other places are either too luxury, not my style/taste or overall not appealing.
They should seriously think about a kama’aina discounted rate or free.
Worst idea I’ve heard of in a long time. Just like spending trillions of dollars to bring down inflation. This will eliminate local shoppers from shopping at Ala Moana Center.
The locals will abandon Ala moana unless they implement parking validation. Alamoana management needs to reminded what happened to liberty house after liberty house decided to cater to tourists and not the local market
That is a huge mistake. I don’t know how the merchant going feel about that when potential customers decide to go elsewhere because why should they have to pay for parking when they coming to shop and spend money at the center? I personally would not give ala moana shopping center my business if I have to also pay for parking- that should always be free to the shoppers. You the management needs money they need to find other ways to do that- not make things worse for the paying shoppers.
Thanks for sharing Beat of Hawaii!
Wow this is awful the prices just keep going up everywhere (in Hawaii and on the Mainland)!! Ala Moana Mall is going to lose lots of local customers which one wouldn’t think is wise on this economy.
Never going there again goodbye to ala Moana shopping center
So what happens if you reserve a stall and paid in advance and when you get there someone is in your reserved stall?
Ridiculous!! It seems everything in Hawaii is becoming limited to only the wealthy. Having to pay to shop and pay to go to certain beaches-what’s next? I enjoyed living in Hawaii for 50 wonderful years but I am glad I left before getting fleeced every way you turn.
Thanks for keeping us abreast of the issues affecting Hawaii.
No one has ever had to pay money for parking in a shopping mall the property owner should be happy to see customers coming to the stores for the tenants that are renting the spaces at the stores because if they customers didn’t come they wouldn’t be any stores and that means he wouldn’t be getting any rent so the people that are shopping there should park out on the street somewhere and not pay anything and protest against paying for parking. I would never shop there because of paying for parking.
I totally agree. You hit it on the nail. It’s going to have a negative ripple effect. Even tourists are paying fees for anything and everything. They wouldn’t want to pay more fees to go to a shopping mall. They would go elsewhere like Ward Village or Kahala Mall, etc. They have free parking.