Nights of Lights parking worries some business owners

Nights of Lights, St. Augustine’s biggest annual event, begins Saturday, and city leaders hope that changes to traffic and parking patterns will ease congestion compared to last year’s event. But one change is leaving some business owners worried.

Like last year, St. Augustine is offering free shuttles from designated parking spots outside the downtown core into the historic area where Nights of Lights festivities are concentrated. 

To further encourage visitors to park in the designated lots and take the shuttles, the city has instituted resident-only parking in neighborhoods surrounding downtown. That new rule is in effect in the Flagler Model Land Company, Abbott Tract and Uptown neighborhoods from Saturday through the end of Nights of Lights in January.

Some residents, like Realtor Ali Birchfield, have praised the move, saying it will prevent visitors from nabbing parking spots intended for people who live there.

“I do not agree with the business model that relies on residential parking to be successful,” Birchfield said during a City Commission meeting Monday. “I do not support any attempt to alter the plan as it is.”

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But business owners like Jennifer Ashton say parking is a hot commodity in normal circumstances. 

Ashton owns Juniper Market on San Marco Avenue in Uptown. She said limiting parking near her cafe to just people who live in the surrounding neighborhood might have the unintended effect of steering regulars away.

“I know a lot of residents are upset about the level of traffic and visitorship that happens during Nights of Lights. It puts a tremendous strain on the city as far as traffic and safety and things like that,” Ashton said. “I think [the city has] gone a little too far in the opposite direction. We do still have locals who come in who aren’t residents of that neighborhood.”

Still, Ashton acknowledges that the city is in a bind — making residents, out-of-town visitors and business owners all happy isn’t easy.

St. Augustine Community Services Director Jaime Perkins says the residential parking requirements in conjunction with the city’s new parking areas that business owners can lease for their employees will all help ease traffic that so many people in town saw as nightmarish during last year’s holiday event.

While not every street in each neighborhood will be limited to just residents, many side streets, like Rohde and Cincinnati avenues in Uptown, will require permits for parking. That is part of the traffic mitigation measures the city has been crafting for Nights of Lights since summer.

Learning from Nights of Lights

A number of Uptown business owners, like Liz Snyder, who co-owns Spinster Abbott’s, a taproom and bodega on San Marco Avenue, voiced their concerns about parking to city officials during the the meeting Monday. 

Snyder and other business owners proposed measures like adding shuttle stops in Uptown to encourage foot traffic during Nights of Lights’ most popular afternoons and evenings as well as providing businesses with parking passes for their staff. 

Ultimately, city officials opted to stay the course on Nights of Lights, but City Manager David Birchim said city staff will look at all options to address the concerns of the Uptown business owners. 

As for a shuttle stop to drop Nights of Lights attendees off in Uptown, Birchim said that was unlikely. The point of the shuttle, he explained, is to move people from parking lots to the city’s Visitor Information Center, not to stop along the way.

Some business owners and residents expressed that they expect this year’s changes to Nights of Lights operations to present a learning experience, but the people whose livelihoods rely on local and tourists shoppers alike are still worried.

“I’m all for resident-driven city planning,” Snyder said. “But without considerations for Uptown customer access and safe employee parking, the ‘learning opportunity’ regarding the impacts of this new approach is primarily on the backs of small, locally owned businesses.”

Nights of Lights will begin at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Plaza de la Constitución in downtown St. Augustine.