You will have to pay for parking in the River Market soon

There are drawbacks to success. It’s like the Royals: When they’re bad, tickets are cheap. It’s nice! But watching nine innings of ground-outs against the Indians isn’t many people’s idea of a fun night out. When the Royals are good, tickets are expensive. But you got LoCain and Salvy out there doin’ their thing. Most people prefer the latter.

So it is with urban revitalization. The River Market used to be a sleepy, if well-kept, sliver of town with a lot of potential but few actual people walking around (save for on the weekends, when the farmers’ market was in session). Now the streetcar rides down through the heart of it, and new luxury housing dents the sky above it. Used to be you could easily find a place to park before running into Carollo’s for a chicken spiedini sandy. These days, though, that tends to require a swing or two around the block. And starting later this month, you’ll have to pay for that spot once you find it.

The city is working with four parking-meter vendors, testing best practices for charging for parking in both the River Market and other parts of downtown. In the River Market, the city says, meters will come in late July “along the perimeter of the City Market, adjacent to city-owned property, from Grand Boulevard to 5th Street and from Main to 3rd Street.”

It will cost $1 per hour, with a two-hour maximum. 

A lot of people are doing the park-and-ride thing, which is eating up spots for local businesses down there, according to the Star. The city plans to step up its enforcement of these new meters in response to that. 

More info here.