Lakeland considering LED signs outside two parking garages indicating available spaces

Sara-Megan Walsh, Lakeland Ledger
·3 min read
Lakeland's Main Street Garage has recently received new signage as it has been opened up for public metered parking, according to Traffic Operations Manager Tess Schwartz.
Lakeland's Main Street Garage has recently received new signage as it has been opened up for public metered parking, according to Traffic Operations Manager Tess Schwartz.

Lakeland commissioners will consider spending nearly $300,000 in hopes of making it easier for drivers to navigate two downtown parking garages.

The City Commission will vote Monday on a contract with Massachusetts-based TCS International Inc. to install parking guidance systems in the Main Street and Heritage Plaza parking garages. The project's cost is $299,888.

"I think it will make it much clearer to the user where they can park and where they can't park, " said Tess Schwartz, the city's traffic operations manager.

The city's ultimate goal is to allow downtown visitors to have an easier parking experience.

"One will be like the Disney system with LEDs above each space, the other is like express parking at a garage where there are a number of spaces on each floor," Mayor Bill Mutz said.

Heritage Garage

The Heritage Parking Garage's parking guidance system will be more extensive based on the diversity of its users in the shared space.

The city will pay TCS International to install 263 single-space censors above each parking space in the garage below the gate to the third-floor, not just the city-owned spaces.

The Heritage Parking Garage is built as a public-private partnership with Lakeland Regional Health, MidFlorida Credit Union and Heritage Plaza's owner, BKP Five. While approximately 49 spaces and 10 handicapped accessible spaces on the first floor are open to the public at all times, the other spaces are only available on evenings and weekends.

The LED lights above each space can be turned green when a parking space is open and red when it's occupied or not available for public use. Schwartz said the city can also turn the sensors other colors, such as blue to indicate a handicapped accessible parking spot is open, or even purple to indicate a space has been reserved.

There will be two LED entry signs at the main entrances to the Heritage Garage to indicate to drivers how many public spaces are available at any given time.

Main Street Garage

Lakeland opened both sides of the Main Street Garage to the public to utilize for downtown parking in November as a pilot program ahead of the holiday season, and it has remained that way.

TCS International will install two LED garage entry signs, one at each of the Main Street Garage's entrances, indicating the total number of public parking spaces available. This will be tracked by installing five ultrasonic directional sensors from the ceiling that can track vehicles entering or exiting the garage, according to the TCS's documents.

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The company's documents say the calibrated sensors are not tricked by pedestrians, carts, debris or bicyclists. The system is smart enough to track vehicles that enter the "wrong way" through the exit, and correct its count of available parking spaces.

Schwartz said the city will be able to set aside a number of reserved parking spots for the permit holders, subtracting those from the number of available number of parking spots displayed on the Main Garage's LED sign.

Sara-Megan Walsh can be reached at swalsh@theledger.com or 863-802-7545. Follow on X @SaraWalshFl.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Looking for space in a Lakeland garage? LED signs could soon help