Sarasota’s four-story St. Armands parking garage has generated barely a quarter of the revenue it was projected to produce, leaving the city with $12.1 million in remaining debt and forcing more than $1.2 million in general-fund loans and transfers since the structure opened in 2019.
The 484-space garage cost $15.6 million to build. City projections pegged annual revenue from hourly fees at $751,000, enough to service the construction bonds. Instead, the garage has averaged about $212,000 a year between 2019 and 2025, according to a Suncoast Searchlight review of city budget documents. Even at its peak in 2023 and 2024, annual revenue reached just under half the projection.
That gap is the financial engine behind the city’s recent push to raise parking fees and extend enforcement hours, a push that collapsed when merchants revolted and the commission voted unanimously on Aug. 3 to temporarily suspend the extended hours. Two public meetings on parking policy are scheduled: an open house at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24, and a City Commission workshop at 9 a.m. Monday, Aug. 31, both at City Hall, 1565 First St.
How the debt stacks up
About 91% of what the parking division owes the city’s general fund is tied to the St. Armands Paid Parking Fund. Debt payments run about $1.1 million a year through 2038. Combined with the roughly $275,000 annual special assessment on St. Armands merchants, the city still falls short by about $628,000 a year on average for garage debt service alone.
The parking division as a whole now owes the general fund more than $1.6 million. Since 2013, it has received at least $3.9 million in subsidies and loans, according to Suncoast Searchlight’s Aug. 14 investigation into the fund’s finances.
The division is designated as an enterprise fund, meaning it is supposed to cover its own costs through fees rather than draw on property-tax revenue.
Commissioners respond
Commissioner Liz Alpert, the only current commissioner who voted to approve the garage in 2016, pointed to COVID-19 and the 2024 hurricane season as disruptions no one anticipated when the project was greenlit.
Vice Mayor Kathy Kelley Ohlrich told Suncoast Searchlight on Aug. 14 that the figures showed the city had not adequately explored ways to make the parking fund self-sustaining, adding that the upcoming meetings are meant to address that failure.
Planning Director Steve Cover, in a written statement, attributed the shortfall to the pandemic and hurricane impacts that required the city to find alternatives, including general-fund transfers, to keep the garage bond current. City spokesperson Luke Mocherman did not answer emailed questions about the garage debt and denied requests to interview city staff.
Merchants split on garage value
Rachel Burns, executive director of the St. Armands Circle Association, told commissioners in August that merchants pay almost $275,000 annually for city parking and called the paid parking program a nightmare for businesses it was supposed to support.
Scott Macdonald, whose family has owned the Crab & Fin restaurant on St. Armands Circle since 1978, offered a more mixed view. He said the garage helped during peak season but criticized the division’s operations: “They’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, providing less and less service. Now our patrons and our employees were having to pay for parking where they weren’t before.”
Before the garage was built, a Kimley-Horn engineering study found St. Armands was about 320 parking spots short of meeting demand. But a Kimley-Horn presentation to the commission also showed that even if the garage hit its $751,000 annual target, it would still lose about $9 million over a decade. When then-Commissioner Shelli Freeland Eddie asked then-Parking Manager Mark Lyons how much the garage would need to collect to break even, Lyons said he did not know.
The Aug. 24 open house and Aug. 31 workshop are opportunities for residents and business owners to weigh in before the commission considers next steps for the parking program.
